Heavy fire tanker crash in Australia

[MiTasol]

The press here are announcing a heavy water bomber crashed here today and are showing photos of a C-130 which probably means it is something else. As the story develops you can probably get more and better info from US fire fighting sites

Large Air Tanker crashes while fighting bushfire in NSW

 

[GrauGeist]

It was a C-130 - Coulson 134 (N134CG)

 

[Graeme]

Extremely sad. There are truly decent human beings in this World - they came from overseas to help us in our bushfire crisis and died in the process. My sincere condolences to all concerned.

 

[rochie]

sad news indeed.

some very brave and decent people

 

[Airframes]

I agree.

 

[vikingBerserker]

Blue skies......

 

[Crimea_River]

Sad new indeed.

 

[Gnomey]

Very sad news indeed.

 

[Mike Flanagan]

The press here are announcing a heavy water bomber crashed here today and are showing photos of a C-130 which probably means it is something else. As the story develops you can probably get more and better info from US fire fighting sites

Large Air Tanker crashes while fighting bushfire in NSW

This may be of interest:

 

[Gnomey]

Crew named

US crew killed in Australia plane crash identified

 

[MiTasol]

Thanks, a good video without the usual greenie/global warming bulldust (and yes mankind is causing climate changes but that is not the cause of these fires).
There are rumours here that this may be the third C-130 tanker to lose a wing. I hope not, but if true that will be the end of C-130's as fire bombers.

 

[TheMadPenguin]

Perhaps new (stronger) wings to handle the turbulence involved in a water bombing run?
And if you're bombing a fire, your engines are breathing smoke: How well does the turboprop recover from transitory oxygen starvation?

 

[FLYBOYJ]

The wings of the C-130 has always been it's achilles heel. There have been several incidents involving structural failures around the wing structure. The USAF had several TCTOs to rework the wings on older C-130s. Some civilian operators have neglected or ignored this TCTO with disateratious results.

Perhaps new (stronger) wings to handle the turbulence involved in a water bombing run?
And if you're bombing a fire, your engines are breathing smoke: How well does the turboprop recover from transitory oxygen starvation?

This has nothing to do with turbulence during fire bomber operation. If the aircraft is structurally sound, well maintained and incorporates all the TCTOs to strengthen the wing, there shouldn't be any issues.

 

[taly01]

The best video publically released in Australia of the "C-130" tanker shows after dropping its water at low level on a fire front over fairly flat terrain it enters dense and heavy smoke over rising terrain, then a few seconds later there is a fireball on the horizon.

 

[MiTasol]

And if you're bombing a fire, your engines are breathing smoke: How well does the turboprop recover from transitory oxygen starvation?

Turbine engines only burn around 20% of the available oxygen in the air (typically 80% of the total mass airflow is used for cooling) so breathing smoke is not a known problem (unless it is volcanic smoke that contains silica which melts and then adheres to the turbine blades and stators).

 

[rednev]

video of the crash sight

Having watched in awe and admiration as this aircraft and the 737 worked to stop the green wattle creek fire as it approached two doors up from me i was really pissed off when i heard the news of the crash.
dont know if it was the same crew flying but they are all heros
.

 

[TheMadPenguin]

"Going into the line of fire" does not always mean lead and powder, but they do go there at risk for our sakes, and are our heroes.

 

[MiTasol]

The preliminary crash report is out - see News: C-130 large air tanker accident with the link to the actual report near the bottom

 

[rednev]

interim report september 24th Investigation: AO-2020-007 - Collision with terrain involving Lockheed EC130Q, N134CG, 50 km north-east of Cooma-Snowy Mountains Airport (near Peak View), New South Wales, on 23 January 2020