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Firefighter Pilots Killed in Air Tanker Collision

Aired August 28, 2001 - 09:07   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: We want to go back live now to northern California. A news conference being held, talking about the fate of the two pilots who died while trying to fight a fire, wildfire in northern California. This is Woody Allshouse with the California Department of Forestry. Let's listen in.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) pilots statewide the option of not flying today.

WOODY ALLSHOUSE, CALIFORNIA DEPT. OF FORESTRY: That's correct.

QUESTION: Have you gotten any feedback from those pilots, as to how many of them are going to take you up on that?

ALLSHOUSE: No, we won't. Not until they start reporting to the air attack bases sometime this morning. We know there's a few that have said they want to fly, and there's a couple who would like to sit today off.

It's very difficult for the pilots and everyone in our department -- although our department is 5,000 strong, it's a very tight family, and any time you lose anyone within that family, it's very difficult to deal with. And especially the pilots, because pilots are a very close-knit family amongst themselves. It's a very hard thing to deal with.

What we don't want, is we don't want pilots up there that don't have 100 percent of their attention flying that aircraft.

QUESTION: How many pilots do you have statewide flying S2s?

ALLSHOUSE: We have 23 air tankers, I think there's 35 pilots -- in the neighborhood of 35 pilots assigned to our air tankers.

QUESTION: Do you have any idea what caused this? Whether there -- we heard there might have been smoke (OFF-MIKE)?

ALLSHOUSE: It's hard to say at this point. We've not really had a chance to speak with very many of the witnesses. And it's pretty much going to be left up to NTSB in their report, as to what may have led up to or actually caused the midair collision.

QUESTION: Do you have any radio communications with the pilots?

ALLSHOUSE: Yes, we do.

QUESTION: And so was there any indication by radio that there may have been a problem before this happened?

ALLSHOUSE: Not that we're aware of. No.

QUESTION: Radio communications (OFF-MIKE). Like, I can't find so and so; or, where did go and so go? (OFF-MIKE) Isn't he supposed to be up here? Was there anything unusual like that?

ALLSHOUSE: Not that we know of at this time.

QUESTION: We've heard reported problems with the S2 in the past. Is there any reason to believe that some of the problems that we've heard about in the past may have contributed at all to the accident yesterday?

ALLSHOUSE: Right now this doesn't appear to be related to any mechanical problems, it just appears to be a simple, unfortunate mid- air collision.

QUESTION: Do you know much about the pilots, in terms of how long they've been flying, or if they knew one another?

ALLSHOUSE: I'm sure they knew one another. I don't know -- I've not had an opportunity to take a look at their flight records or anything at this point in time. Those will be released to the NTSB, I would assume, today or the next day or so. But, most of the pilots we hire are very experienced, high-time pilots. We consider them the best in the world.

QUESTION: How long have they been flying?

ALLSHOUSE: All together or...?

QUESTION: These two pilots, how long have they been flying?

ALLSHOUSE: I don't know. I don't have the pilot records available right now.

QUESTION: Are today's conditions different than yesterday when this happened?

ALLSHOUSE: As far as the weather is? I don't -- I believe it's supposed to be about the same weather today. I don't think it's supposed to -- we're not supposed to see any cooler temperatures until tomorrow or the next day.

QUESTION: Now that we are on live, can you talk a little bit about the circumstances believed to have caused this fire?

ALLSHOUSE: Well, we know that at about 3:00 p.m. yesterday the fire was reported. Shortly thereafter, we started receiving reports from citizens there's a suspicious vehicle in the area. That information was relayed to our arson investigators. They located the vehicle, executed a traffic stop, conducted an interview alongside the road, and subsequently made an arrest.

We know that it was...

KAGAN: We've been listening to Woody Allshouse, he's with the California Department of Forestry. He is talking about a terrible accident that took place in northern California. Two air tanker pilots, their planes collided and both of them died in this collision. They were there to fight a northern California wildfire. As I mentioned, both pilots died.

The brush fire right now about 250 acres. It's burning in Hopland, California, that's in northern California, a few hours north of San Francisco.

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