C-130 Hercules fire bomber loses its wings and crashes - video

[Jon]

2002 was a terrible fire season in the United States. Not only was there widespread fire, but there were two deadly crashes of aerial firefighting planes.

Both aircraft crashed due to structural failure, and both crashes involved the wings separating from the aircraft. This was attributed in part to metal fatigue and stress cracks, of course exacerbated by the structural stress that an airplane experiences when it dumps a load of suppressant.

Extraordinarily, one of these crashes was filmed by a bystander. Here's a 14-second video of the C-130 losing its wings and crashing:

As a result of these two crashes, the entire US aerial firefighting fleet was grounded. Stricter safety inspection methods were implemented, most of the contracts for the large tankers were terminated, and aerial firefighting started to rely more on the Modular Airborne FireFighting System.

Full NTSB report: https://www.ntsb.gov/about/employmen...02GA201&akey=1


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[Frank S]

And I thought being in a passenger liner and having an engine pod fall off would be bad.

[wizard69]

An awful sight! This happened so quickly that bailing out wasn't likely even feasible. I'm not even sure the pilots are equipped with parachutes but without an ejection seat you are going in with out much hope.

And I thought being in a passenger liner and having an engine pod fall off would be bad.

[Frank S]

C130's would most likely have been equipped with ejection seats for the military those seats would probably have contained a parachute made into the back rest on the later models, earlier ones might have had a cavity in the back rest for the pilot's chute to nest in. still as low to the ground as they were flying it would have been difficult to eject to safety anyway.

[Jon]

And they would have probably needed a zero-zero ejection seat (can eject safely at zero altitude and zero groundspeed). And they would've had to eject before the fuselage rolled over and pointed toward the ground, otherwise they would've been ejected toward it (about 3-4 seconds). And they would've had to have been prepared for, and expecting, the possibility of ejection; I don't know if anyone has ever ejected from a fire bomber.

Finally, even if they managed to eject, they would be parachuting into a forest fire.

[Frank S]

Not a good way to go in either scenario die in a fiery crash or burn to death in a forest fire

[sandra1963]

January 23 2020 NSW Australia. Water bomber loses wings , crashes, 3 crew die. Same model aircraft?