The great airtanker debacle - US Forest Service firefighting airtanker fleet - includes related articles

American Forests, May-June, 1994 by Herbert E. McLean

But soon, a shock for the operators: According to one dismayed pilot, the Forest Service had made no specific provisions for providing replacement parts for the aging fleet. Furthermore, says a pilot who doesn't want to be identified, some of the planes being delivered had "junker" engines.

"You call this a giveaway?" the same pilot scowled. "Who's kidding who?"

WHISTLE-BLOWING, NUMBERS-JUGGLING

In 1991, three years after the program began with the four handpicked operators, a pilot/aviation consultant from the Pacific Northwest, Gary Eitel, picked up the phone and asked the Forest Service for some C-130s on behalf of his airtanker clients.

He claimed last summer in a letter he read before a House Agriculture subcommittee that the Forest Service at first told him there were just three aircraft in the program, with no more available. That didn't quite add up for Eitel, who checked around and learned that four operators had been signed up, and that Reagan was receiving additional C-130s from the operators as part of his brokerage commission. Official Forest Service records show that the program actually began with seven aircraft.

"I began numerous inquiries to the Forestry Service under the Freedom of Information Act. Their responses were untimely, irregular, and, in certain cases, untrue. I intentionally drew a line in the sand between the Forestry Service and myself concerning their misbehavior," Eitel stated in his letter.

Eitel further testified that he learned, via the General Services Administration, that the Forest Service had processed "at least 28 aircraft"--not just three--into the hands of the tanker operators.

As for their $15,000 price tag, which precipitated the "Giveaway" headlines, the Inspector General last year reported the airtankers are worth more like $2.4 million each, making a 28-plane fleet worth maybe $67 million. Or you can go by the Forest Service's approximate net value of between $750,000 and $1.5 million per plane (including added expenses for airtanker configuration), as reported to American Forests earlier this year. Take your pick as you try to decide if the Forest Service treated taxpayers fairly in the transaction.

THE MAVERICK

If appearances of government favoritism toward suppliers, "giveaway" aircraft prices, and claims of inaccurate information weren't enough, pan your mind's eye now to little Chandler, Arizona. There, another tanker operator, T&G Aviation, also asked the Forest Service for a trade, but was reportedly told no aircraft were available. T&G called several Congressmen, and soon that operator became the proud owner of four C-130s under the Historical Aircraft Exchange Program, according to the Los Angeles Times. Add to the mix what appears to be congressional wheeling and dealing for certain constituents.

Even after the favored treatment, T&G Aviation apparently wasn't satisfied to play by the rules. According to the Forest Service, this operator, instead of using all of its C-130 cargo planes to fight fires, opted instead to fly two of them to Saudi Arabia during Operation Desert Storm. Whistle-blower Eitel describes the rule-breaking a little more colorfully: