Yosemite wildfire updates: Planes encounter debris, underscores fire’s ‘inherent danger’

Two aircraft engaged in battling the Washburn Fire in Yosemite National Park had encounters with debris falling from the sky during runs to drop fire-retardant chemicals on the flames.

On Saturday, the pilot of a lead plane operated by the U.S. Forest Service radioed to his base shortly after 6 p.m. that a tree branch came up and over his aircraft and fell earthward behind it, and in front of the air tanker following him.

The radio conversation was captured by a Twitter user and posted to Twitter.

“Hey, I just want to let you know a branch went right over the top of us, pretty good size, probably 50 feet above us coming down and fell right in between Tanker 103 and myself,” the pilot broadcast over the radio.

“OK, copy. A repeat of yesterday’s zero-one,” was the reply from a ground base – an apparent reference to an incident on Friday in which a different tanker was actually struck by flying debris during a drop.

The general manager of the company that owns the tanker confirmed the Saturday incident but said one online report referring to it as a “close call” was exaggerated.

“I talked to our captain and co-pilot in (Tanker 103), and they said it was a pretty textbook drop coming about 150 feet off a ridgeline,” Matt Isley, general manager for Oregon-based Aero Air, told The Fresno Bee on Monday. “They were about one-third to a half-mile behind the lead plane, and they said they didn’t see the branch.”

“A close call would have been if they saw the branch,” Isley added.

Erickson Aero Air Tanker 103 is a McDonnell-Douglas MD-87 twin-engine jet built in 1991, according to Federal Aviation Administration records. Isley said the crew of the tanker, based at a firefighting facility at the former McClellan Air Force Base near Sacramento, didn’t learn about the lead plane’s report until after the flight.

The branch was most likely a piece of forest debris blown up into the air by powerful updrafts created by the wildfire before falling back to earth, Isley said. “In every mission, there’s inherent danger,” he said. “Basically they’re flying an airliner about 150 feet off the ground.”

“That’s something most fighter jet pilots wouldn’t do,” Isley added. “Let’s see Tom Cruise try that,” a reference to the action star’s “Top Gun” movies about Navy jet pilots.

Isley described actual debris strikes on aircraft “fairly rare.”

The conditions for flying to drop chemicals on a fire include not only smoke, but challenging and sometimes unpredictable winds. “These guys do a tremendous amount of planning for their drops, looking at what the winds are doing and the smoke conditions,” Isley added.

In firefighting operations, the lead airplane flies ahead as sort of a guide through the drop run with the tanker following. “The lead pilot always make the call on whether conditions are a little too crazy,” Isley said. “Safety is always the number one priority, and they do a good job of assessing the situation.”

Following the encounter with the branch, Tanker 103 landed for one more load of chemicals and made one more drop behind a lead plane before a rising smoke column created issues for visibility, limiting any additional flights, Isley said.

The radio conversation between the lead pilot and the ground emphasized the concern for safety.

“So if we keep seeing that, we might have to knock it off,” the pilot radioed. “I don’t want to take a chance of busting a window on an airplane or hurting aircraft for this.”

“Absolutely. Keep me updated on that,” was the reply from the ground.

A day earlier, a different tanker aircraft operated by another company was struck by debris while making a drop on the Washburn Fire, Isley said. But that tanker apparently sustained no damage and was back up in the air and flying more missions later in the day.