# 9 Firefighters in California Helicopter Crash Are Presumed Dead



## VentMedic (Aug 7, 2008)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/06/AR2008080601002_pf.html

By Karl Vick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 7, 2008; A03




> LOS ANGELES, Aug. 6 -- Nine firefighters were missing and presumed dead after a helicopter crashed this week while ferrying them to one of the blazes still raging in Northern California.
> 
> The nine were believed to have been consumed by the flames that erupted after the Sikorsky S-61 fell out of the sky Tuesday night about 35 miles northwest of Redding "under unknown circumstances," said a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration.
> 
> The four survivors were seriously burned, with two listed in critical condition.





> The crash brought to 15 the death toll from what is by far California's worst fire year on record. More than 1.4 million acres have burned so far "and it's the sixth of August," said Dan Sendek, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. "We're just getting into the thick of fire season right now."






> In California, the year's previous wildfire fatalities include two people killed directly by fire -- a firefighter overtaken by a blaze he was scouting and a civilian whose body was found in a house after a blaze swept through.
> 
> Another firefighter was killed by a falling tree, and yet another died of a heart attack. Two others were killed in accidents during "rest cycles" -- one in a motorcycle accident, the other in a drowning.




*Survivor describes last moments of fiery copter crash*
Meredith May,John Koopman, Chronicle Staff Writers
Thursday, August 7, 2008

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/08/07/BA4N12709I.DTL



> 08-07) 16:24 PDT REDDING - -- While authorities confirmed today that eight firefighters and a pilot listed as missing in a fiery helicopter crash in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest are dead, one of four survivors provided chilling details about the horrific moments of the crash.





> Somewhere between 200 and 300 feet off the ground, she said, he heard what no air passenger ever wants to hear - the pilot, in a panic.
> 
> "Duck! We're going down!" the pilot yelled.
> 
> Schroeder looked out the window in the split second of freefall, and thought he saw the helicopter crash through some branches. In a second, he was on the ground, trapped under burning metal and a body.


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## mycrofft (Aug 8, 2008)

*Locally the story keeps changing.*

Some were taken to the burn center at Univ Calif Davis Med Center in Sacramento where they are "Stable but critical".


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## mikeylikesit (Aug 8, 2008)

oh man, my thoughts and prayers are with the family and friends.


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## mikie (Aug 8, 2008)

I got a CNN breaking news e-mail alert to my phone about that...sent chills up my spine.  Damn tragedy; always hate to see of our own go (FD or EMS!) down like that.    

[insert a moment of silence]


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