By FireRescue magazine staff

On Aug. 5, 2008, nine men were killed when the Sikorsky S-61N helicopter they were riding in crashed into a hillside in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest near Weaverville, Calif.

Seven of the dead were firefighters employed by Merlin, Ore.-based Grayback Forestry.
• Shawn Blazer, 30, from Medford, Ore.
• Scott Charleson, 25, from Phoenix, Ariz.
• Matthew Hammer, 23, from Grants Pass.
• Edrik Gomez, 19, from Ashland, Ore.
• Bryan Rich, 29, from Medford, Ore.
• David Steele, 19, from Ashland, Ore.
• Steven Renno, 21, from Cave Junction, Ore.

The other two men killed were 54-year-old Pilot Roark Schwanenberg of Lostine, Ore., and 64-year-old Check Pilot Jim Ramage of Redding, Calif. Ramage was with the U.S. Forest Service.

Four men survived the crash: William Coultas, 45, a helicopter pilot from Cave Junction, Ore., and three Grayback firefighters: Richard Schroeder, 43, from Medford, Ore.; Jonathan Frohreich, 19, from Medford, Ore.; and Mike Brown, 21, from Grants Pass, Ore.

This is the deadliest air crash involving firefighters in U.S. history.

What Happened
On Aug. 5, the Grayback firefighters had been digging firelines and extinguishing hotspots on the 83,000-acre Iron Complex Fire, which had been ignited by lightning on June 21 and quickly burned through thousands of acres of timber, grass and brush.

Just before 7:40 p.m., the men boarded the Sikorsky S-61N helicopter (operated by Carson Helicopters out of Grants Pass, Ore.) that would shuttle them to a mountain camp for the night. Due to forecasted worsening weather conditions, the helicopter had been assigned to transport approximately 50 wildland firefighter helitack crewmembers out of the Trinity Alps Wilderness of the Shasta Trinity National Forest. The helicopter had completed two trips, and had gone to Trinity Helibase to refuel. After it had refueled, it returned for its third load of passengers.

Witnesses report that the helicopter lifted off from the remote clearing slower than normal. It rose approximately 40 to 50 feet before the nose struck a tree. The rotor then struck several trees, causing the helicopter to crash on its left side and catch fire.

About 1 month after the crash, survivor Michael Brown described the incident to The Oregonian. He said the helicopter liftoff felt “sluggish.” He heard a sickening thump and then watched as the main rotor smashed into tree limbs and splintered. The pilot apparently shouted “Mayday! Mayday! Helicopter is going down!” After Coultas shouted at the men to put their heads between their knees, the helicopter leaned to the left and struck the ground with incredible force, Brown recalled. “Rick Schroeder told me later that seats had collapsed on top of us, and he must have pushed them off. I couldn’t unbuckle the harness, but somehow I wriggled out. Rick said he jumped out the side door,” Brown told the newspaper.


Memorial
On Aug. 15, 2008, crowds of mourners filled the 5,800-seat Lithia Motors Amphitheater on the Jackson County Fairgrounds. They remembered the nine men for their love of family and the outdoors, for their love of the fraternity they belonged to and for their love of the work they died performing. As the tribute came to an end, nine firefighters from Grayback Forestry handed folded flags to grieving loved ones. Among the presenters were three of the four survivors: Schroeder, Frohreich and Brown. Coultas remained hospitalized at the time of the service.


Investigation
A preliminary report on the crash by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) found that the helicopter lost power to its main rotor as it took off. The investigation is focusing on the downed helicopter’s engines, drive shaft and transmission.

According to The Oregonian, the helicopter was manufactured in 1964 but has been owned by Carson Helicopters for about a year. The aircraft had logged more than 35,000 hours of flight time during its working life, but a recently replaced transmission had logged only 23 hours.

Lawsuits Filed
Several lawsuits have been filed related to this incident. Those named in the suits include Carson Helicopters; Carson’s subsidiary, Carson Helicopter Services; Sikorsky Aircraft Corp.; Sikorsky’s parent company, United Technologies Corp.; the engine’s manufacturer, General Electric; and Aurora, Ore.-based Columbia Helicopters, which performed maintenance on the aircraft.

According to a March 2009 article on OregonLive.com, Sikorsky S-61s have gone down four other times in the past 15 years under similar circumstances, leading some safety officials in the United States and Canada to raise questions about a part in the aircraft’s clutch system.

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