Heli Fire Training goes wrong
A firefighting helicopter practicing bucket drops in the Clark Fork River crashed into the water Friday afternoon, requiring one pilot to swim to shore while emergency crews assisted the second to safety.
The Missoula Rural Fire District responded to reports of the downed helicopter shortly after 1 p.m. Witnesses living at the Wagon Wheel Trailer Court — off Big Flat Road northwest of Missoula — saw the aircraft go down behind a bank of cottonwood trees and enter the river.
“There was one pilot still inside the helicopter when we arrived,” said Missoula County Sheriff’s Deputy Robert Kennedy. “The other pilot was on the shore across the river.”
Kennedy said both occupants were safe and suffered no injuries in the crash. Officials said it was unknown what caused the helicopter to go down, although Kennedy said the pilot reported mechanical troubles.
The helicopter, identified as Bell model 206L-3, is apparently owned by a company in Lewiston, Idaho. The pilot was working to earn his annual U.S. Forest Service recertification to conduct bucket work on wildfires.
“The pilot said he was doing a recertification with the Forest Service to keep up his license,” Kennedy said. “That’s what they were doing today.”
Locating the helicopter posed an initial challenge, and the crash site proved difficult to reach.
Kennedy said officials, including those with the helicopter company, are working to determine how to extract the aircraft from the river.
Brent Christopherson, assistant chief of the Missoula Rural Fire District, said no fuel appeared to be leaking into the river, as the helicopter remained intact.