Helicopter crash believed to have killed nine firefighters

FAA statement indicates there may only be 6 fatalities.

This is so sad, not matter if there are 6 or 9 fatalities. My thoughts go out to all of the families. I'm truly sorry.

I doubt the faa was there

The FAA is participating in the investigation. I believe at this point there is only one actual confirmed death. An FAA spokesperson said they do not know who started saying there were 9 PRESUMED deaths, but it wasn't them, and it sounds like it's not true. I just think it sucks that 9 families, plus the families of all the firefighters still stuck on the mountain that were awaiting transport, unable to contact their families, are grieving, believing their firefighters are dead, when NOTHING has been confirmed! I'm no journalist, but every newspaper, radio station and TV station in the country is saying they're dead, and I just don't think they should be saying that until they know.

OK, I'll eat my words and say a prayer.

FAA has updated their preliminary report by removing mention of minor injuries and confirming 9 fatalities:

DESCRIPTION
N612AZ, A SIKORSKY S-61N ROTORCRAFT, WHILE TRANSPORTING FIRE FIGHTERS, CRASHED UNDER UNKNOWN CIRCUMSTANCES, THERE WERE 13 PERSONS ON BOARD, 9 WERE FATALLY INJURED, 4 SUSTAINED SERIOUS INJURIES, 38 MILES FROM REDDING, CA
http://www.faa.gov/data_statistics/a...a/B_08...

I am so very sorry. It has been a horrible year for deaths from fire. My heart goes out to all the families of these people.

Sad news.

I spent a part of the yesterday afternoon talking to a couple of FF here from Idaho to help. Good people, they were traumatized when they heard of this. Say thanks when you can, they do appreciate it.

I'm a retired disabled woman living here in a nice little mountain town full of good folks.We are on the south-west border of the Buckhorn blaze and according to the info we get direct from the front-line firefighters who take their R&R in our town,they aren't using the super-tankers because,#1 They want the fire to burn as much of the overloaded fuel supplies on the forest floor as they can THIS TIME, yet saving structures. This of course will mean less fires and fire intensities in the future.
#2.(Actually this should be number one but I'm not retyping this dang thing)They are having a hell of a difficult time putting out the fires because of terrain steepness and the extremely high temperatures of the blazes.
I understand your mindset though,Ed.
Supertankers may not work in our areas anyway because of the Alps and the high ridges are a bit tougher for such a large aircraft manuver around and over. In a crowded sky such as we have been having since June with the various choppers hauling manpower around,those behemoths are an accident waiting to happen.

Understanding that lightning has been around this old earth longer than man has, can someone please tell me who put the lightning fires out before we arrived on the scene? And if no one put the fires out, why do we have forests today, wouldn't they have burnt up millions of years ago. Fact of the matter is mother nature (or whom-ever) kept the fuel load (forest litter) to a minimum by burning it off every few years so that when it did burn it was a "cool" fire that eliminated forest litter and did not burn so hot as to kill mature trees. Then along comes man who in his great wisdom puts out every fire at the behest of the the timber/cattle, environmental interests because they didnt want to lose one tree and/or blade or grass. Now we have so much fuel on the ground that the fires burn so hot they kill everything.
Yes, to correct the problem WE created there needs to be more logging, and more controlled burns and less knee-jerk reaction from special interests..........
Ed, mentality like yours created this problem!
One last thing Ed, do you own stock in a fire fighting company?

Ed Nemechek wrote:

<quoted text>----------I would counter your statement by saying that it's your thinking that is totally perverted and is the basis of our deadly wildfire problem. No I don't have any financial interest in any Supertanker company and I've been asked that many times. I guess some people have minds oriented only to money and to heck with saving life and stopping suffering, which is another cause of our continuous deliberately facilitated wildfires presided over by criminals in official positions and we must stop it NOW. Stopping fires save lives and property - lame science and excuses do not.- ednemechek@verizon.net

Please respond to the following and if your answer is rational (scientific), I'll stand corrected!

Understanding that lightning has been around this old earth longer than man has, can someone please tell me who put the lightning fires out before we arrived on the scene? And if no one put the fires out, why do we have forests today, wouldn't they have burnt up millions of years ago. Fact of the matter is mother nature (or whom-ever) kept the fuel load (forest litter) to a minimum by burning it off every few years so that when it did burn it was a "cool" fire that eliminated forest litter and did not burn so hot as to kill mature trees.

i was living in the same fire complex as these fire fighters when i went on my california tour. The first bit of information was way wrong. took a day and a half until they could give us the real story.