Pilots safe after Port Alberni-based aircraft crashes while fighting wildfire in Australia

The two pilots aboard a firefighting aircraft owned by Port Alberni-based Coulson Aviation walked away after a crash in Western Australia on Monday while fighting a fire in a national park.

Australian media outlets 7 News and WA Today reported that the 737 air tanker had just dropped a load of fire retardant on a blaze in Fitzgerald River National Park when it crashed just after 4 p.m. on Monday.

The fire, believed to have been sparked by lightning, has burned about 900 hectares in the national park, which is about six hours from Perth, WA Today reported.

It said that flight tracking information showed the plane was travelling at 675 feet at a speed of 101 knots just before it crashed.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau is investigating.

“We are very grateful the two team members on Tanker 139 are safe,” Wayne Coulson, president of the Coulson Group of Companies said in a statement. “Our thoughts and our immediate concern is for those team members and their families.

“We’re also grateful for the support being provided by our firefighting and aviation industry colleagues in Western Australia.”

This is the second crash of a Coulson Aviation aircraft in Australia — in January 2020, a C-130 Hercules air tanker crashed, killing all three crew members.

The tanker had been fighting fires in the Snowy Manaro area of New South Wales.

Coulson Aviation responded by grounding its other firefighting aircraft in the country as a precaution.

On Jan. 17, Coulson Aviation announced it had been awarded the contract for Australia’s National Large Air Tanker, and that a converted Boeing 737, Tanker 139 — the newest addition to the Coulson fleet — would be based in Sydney, New South Wales, supporting additional locations in-country as needed.

The contract is for two years with the option to extend, the company said, adding the aircraft is capable of dropping up to 4,000 gallons of fire retardant or water at flow rates of up to 3,000 gallons per second and has a passenger capacity of 63.

It said the company has operated in Australia for almost 20 years, providing aerial support across multiple Australian states.

Coulson Aviation began converting six Boeing 737s from Southwest Airlines into Fireliner air tankers in 2017, and is the only company in the world to have done so.