The owner’s “intentional understatement” of a helicopter’s empty weight was partly to blame for the Aug. 5, 2008, crash of a Sikorsky S-61N that killed seven firefighters and two crewmembers during a forest fire near Weaverville, California, U.S., the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) says.
Three firefighters and a third crewmember were seriously injured and the helicopter was destroyed in the crash of the S-61N, which was operated by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) as a public flight,1 under contract with Carson Helicopters2 of Grants Pass, Oregon.
In its final report on the accident, the NTSB said the probable causes were “the following actions by Carson Helicopters: the intentional understatement of the helicopter’s empty weight, the alteration of the power-available chart to exaggerate the helicopter’s lift ability and the practice of using unapproved ab…
