Butler 2 Fire - Tanker 492 Down, NO INJURIES - Hard landing

Tanker 492 Hard Landing
Credit; Jim Tunnell

At approximately 1312 hrs yesterday Tanker 492 a contract single engine air tanker was forced to make a emergency hard landing in a nearby field yesterday after a engine failure; no apparent injuries and pilot was ambulatory, Aircraft landed hard but generally in one piece.

Repeat No injury; Medi-vac was not needed apparently the aircraft ran out of fuel after a warning system was activated and the pilot began looking for Big Bear airport nearby, But determined he did not have enough altitude to make it too the airport according to Beryl Shears, president of Western Pilot Service Tanker 492 crash landed near Fox Farm Road and Sandalwood in Big Bear Lake at 1:12 pm.
The pilot, Bill Penny of Phoenix, AZ, had an fuel warning light and alarm and was looking for an airport to land at, Immediately after the warning, his engine lost power. Penny radioed Butler 2 Air Operations, His last transmission before the hard landing -"I just had a engine failure, over the lake, going to put it in the field." and crash landed in the vacant field. At the end of the landing the wheels collapsed and the aircraft came to a stop on its belly and wing. The pilot walked away from the aircraft with no injuries.

The SEAT Type 4 Aircraft is out of Phoenix, Arizona and apparently they do keep the aircraft in very clean condition and spare no expense on exceptional support crews...Where do I apply?

Picture from Western Pilot Service Firefighting Aircraft
Website


Related Inciweb report below

Small Engine Air Tanker Pilot Has a Controlled Emergency Landing Near Big Bear

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Incident: Butler 2
Released: 24 hrs. ago

About 1:10 PM today a single engine air tanker assigned to the Butler 2 Fire had an internal engine warning light come on and lost power. The pilot determined that he did not have enough time to land at Big Bear Airport and initiated an emergency landing in a vacant field off of Fox Farm Road. At the end of the landing the wheels collapsed and the aircraft came to a stop on its belly and wing. The pilot walked away from the aircraft with no injuries.

The site was secured and emergency medical support was provided by Big Bear Lake and Big Bear City. The accident is under the jurisdiction of San Bernardino County Sheriff.

A "Safety Stand-down" was initiated by the incident management team managing the Butler 2 Fire, which involved stopping air operations until 230 PM for people involved in air operations activities to pause for a reflection on air safety.

The loss of the plane will not adversely affect fire fighting activities on the Butler 2 Fire.