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Missoula-based Firefighting Plane Crashes near Reno

By Courtney Lowery, 9-02-08

	Scott Poniewaz/New West A Neptune Aviation's tanker.

A firefighting plane from Missoula-based Neptune Aviation crashed near Reno after taking off to make the day’s final drops on a fire burning in the Sierra Nevada. All three crew members died in the crash.

Names of the victims have not been released and FAA investigators were headed in to investigate the crash.

Scott Sonner of the Associated Press has more of the story here, including this bit of history:

“It was at least the third time a P2V owned by Neptune was involved in a fatal crash while fighting wildfires on government contract over the past 15 years. Two men were killed when one crashed near Missoula in 1994 and two other men died in a crash near Reserve, N.M., in 1998.”

Sonner also reports that the order for the tanker was canceled just moments after the plane took off and witnesses reported seeing a piece of engine or wing fall from the plane before it caught fire and then crashed.

The tanker was one of Neptune P2-Vs, aircraft that had been grounded in 2004 when the Forest Service revoked firefighting contracts on several tankers for safety review—after three crashes, including one that killed a crew of three near Reno in 2002. In 2005, the Forest Service, after doing more research, renewed the contracts and deemed the tankers safe to fly.

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