Aerial firefighting operations carry a necessarily elevated degree of risk, but this one looks especially perilous to a non-professional like me. Slow, steeply banked and releasing the water mid-turn onto the slope of a hill - is that really the manoeuvre that they set out to attempt?
Either way, the courage required boggles my mind. So sad to see it go wrong.
I'd like to learn something about the timing and impact of the water release. Was the outcome already inevitable before the moment of release, or did the release itself and the resulting change in characteristics contribute to the loss of control, with no time to react? Alternatively, as suggested by one of the videos, was it an 'emergency dump' in a last ditch attempt to recover the situation?
Apologies if this question seems dumb or insensitive. It's not intended to be either.