Relatório do Acidente ocorrido no Incêndio Florestal de Yarnel Hill

At approximately 1615, ASM2 heard radio traffic between Division Supervisor A (DIVS A, which
included Granite Mountain Hotshots) and Operations about Granite Mountain going down their
escape route to a safety zone. ASM2 asked Operations if they should check on the crew in the
safety zone. After Operations stated that Granite Mountain was ”in a good place” and safe, ASM2
continued retardant applications, including dry practice runs that are conducted to properly align
the live drop, west to east behind Yarnell. After one dry run, ASM2 heard DIVS A say over the
radio, “that’s what we are looking for.” Approximately eleven minutes later at 1648, ASM2 relayed
notification of shelter deployments to Dispatch. At 1712, ASM1 arrived over the fire and relieved
ASM2 who departed for Prescott to refuel.
W eather: Although there were sufficient airtankers assigned to the fire, the afternoon’s severe
weather hampered the tankers’ effectiveness by closing reloading bases periodically and at other
times by making flying to and from the fire unsafe. However, this was not the case at the time of
the entrapment as a Very Large Airtanker (VLAT) was over the fire carrying 10,743 gallons of
retardant and was prepared to drop at the ASM’s order if the crew could be located.
At 1707, LAT T-43, responding to the Yarnell Hill Fire from Southern California suffered a left
reciprocal piston engine mechanical failure that forced them to jettison their retardant load and
return to the base of departure. Dispatch revised this order to UTF as T-43 went out of service the
remainder of the day. At 1729, the Wickenburg base closed due to weather and the SEATs began
using the Prescott ATB. Aviation operations ended 30 minutes after sunset (2017), the Official
Cutoff Time for the day.
Table 1. Aircraft Hourly Rates and Flight Hour Summary
VLAT – DC-10 Flight Rate (5000 gallons of retardant or less) $ 4,553/hr.
VLAT – DC-10 Flight Rate (5000 gallons of retardant or more) $ 12,500/hr.
LAT – P2V Flight Rate (2,082 gallons of retardant) $ 8,495/hr.
SEAT – Single Engine Airtanker Flight Rate (750 gallons of retardant) $ 3,242/hr.
SEAT – Single Engine Airtanker Flight Rate (450 gallons of retardant) $ 2,305/hr.
Date Type Flights Gallons Hours
29 June 2013 SEAT 15 7,626 6.92
30 June 2013 SEAT 47 31,268 15.2
LAT 17 35,379 15.36
VLAT 8 88,106 10.52
1 July 2013 SEAT 25 15,990 6.71
LAT 2 4,887 2.1
VLAT 2 22,458 2.22
Totals
116 205,714 59.03
Yarnell Hill Fire Serious Accident Investigation 100