Thread: Reports of a large air tanker crash in NSW

ATSB Prelim. Report.

Preliminary report released about crash of Air Tanker 134 - Fire Aviation



Deleted link.

Bugger. Fell for the Three card trick again.

2nd Link from above post should have been.


Two C-130Hs begin the path to transformation - Fire Aviation

That ATSB report says retardant was still on the aircraft as the drop had been only a partial drop - yet there is no evidence at th crash site of retardant. In a fire will the retardant boil off and not leave any evidence?

Also the early reports said that the crash debris trail was about a km long - clearly this is not the case from the crash site pics in the report - looks to be only a couple of hundred meters long.

Curious that the CVR had not been in use since it apparently left the US. A fat lot of help that was. One would not like to think that it could be manually disconnected or U/S as part of a check list without someone noticing.

ie. Switch the "ignition" on & a lot of things light up inc. the CVR. No pun intended btw.

Originally Posted by p38arover

I used to have a helmet cam when riding my motorbike. But cops don't like anything attached to the helmet. Besides, if I was hit, they'd probably never find the camera to use it as evidence against the driver.

In this case the police are not just being difficult and looking for a reason to pull someone over. Helmets are not designed to work with attachments like a camera. In the event they are needed to do the job they were designed for the hard attachment will cause a helmet failure. A certain formula one driver had a skying accident which should not have caused the injuries he suffered except for a camera which went through the helmet into his head. I race go carts and cameras are not allowed or this reason.

The CVR may have been MEL’d as unserviceable, but usually these things must be repaired within a few days. It depends on Lockheed’s MEL.

It’s normal practice to check all circuit breakers prior to each flight. Most companies allow one reset of a popped breaker (on the ground only), before engineering intervention is required.

Without knowing what the culture is within Coulson (and I’m not implying this happened), it would be possible to pull the CVR circuit breaker. If the last recording was in the US, that’s a long time to have no CVR...

Originally Posted by p38arover

I used to have a helmet cam when riding my motorbike. But cops don't like anything attached to the helmet. Besides, if I was hit, they'd probably never find the camera to use it as evidence against the driver.

Or, of course, evidence against you.