Incident Name: Butler Creek Fire, Lolo National Forest, MT
Date: 7/29/1994
Personnel: 2 lives lost
Age:
Agency/Organization: Neptune Aviation, Inc; Contracted to the U.S. Forest Service, Missoula Aerial Fire Depot
Position: aerial firefighters
Summary:
Robert E. Kelly, 58 years, Pilot
Randy C. Lynn, 44 years, Engineer
On July 29, 1994, pilots Bob Kelly and Randy Lynn of Neptune, Inc died in a Lockheed P2V-7 air tanker crash, registration # N918AP west of Missoula MT after dropping a partial load of retardant on the Butler Creek Fire. According to Flight Safety Digest, April 1999 Appendix, “the crew apparently became fixated on the malfunction of the retardant-release doors and did not realize the tanker was entering a narrow box canyon.” The airplane struck steeply rising terrain below the ridgetop. (Flight Safety Digest, April 1999 — Fixed-wing Aircraft Accidents During US Aerial Fire Fighting Operations 1976-1998; link below.)
P2V Airtanker for type of airtanker. Photo credit Mike Meadows:
Maps
Accident Location: Crash site is close to the middle of the fire scar SW of Squaw Peak, now Ch-paa-qn Peak. Lat/Lon provided by Steve Karkanen.
{mosmap lat=’ 47.148894’|lon=’-114.367397’|marker=’0’|text=’Accident Location’}
Reports, Documentation, Lessons Learned
- Information from the NTSB, FAA, USFS, AAP and research by the WLF Staff:
- July 29, 1994 – Tanker 04
- 2 killed: Bob Kelly, Randy Lynn
- Operator: Neptune Aviation of Missoula, MT
- Type: Lockheed P2V-7
- crashed near Missoula, MT, controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) on a drop run
- FAA Tail #N918AP
- NTSB # SEA94T#A02
- NTSB Database Loookup NTSB Identification: SEA94T#A02 is incomplete. Screensave of only record.
- Forest Service Investigations – Fatal Aviation Accident History (1979-2000): Pages 26 – 28 for this incident (402 K pdf) | Entire History (download 4.72 MB pdf)
- Flight Safety Foundation (flightsafety.org): Flight Safety Digest, Vol 18, No. 4, April 1999, US Aerial Firefighting Accidents Involving Fixed Wing Aircraft 1976-1998 (218 K pdf)
- USFS Heroes Memorial: Robert Eugene Kelly | Randy C Lynn
- Note: Prior to 1996 NTSB did not investigate Gov owned and operated, Gov owned and contractor operated or some aircraft that were privately owned and operated as “public aircraft”. Government agency investigations and reports were/are often hard to find and access. The “Pressler Act”, passed in 1995 and enacted in 1996, changed that, making all aircraft accident reports easier to access and lessons easier to learn. (Click the link and search on “Pressler”.)
- Kelly’s and Lynn’s names, death date and brief bio are included in the USFA Firefighter Fatality Retrospective Study, published April 2002 (2,888 K pdf)
Wildlandfire.com Links:
Media Articles and Reports.
Identification of the fallen:
- Forest Service Must Pay $3.5 Million In Airtanker Crash12/4/1998 | Initially by AP 1998
Missoula – December 4 – A federal judge [U.S. District Court in Missoula, Montana] has ruled the US Forest Service must pay almost $3.5 million, to the families of two airtanker pilots killed while fighting a forest fire northwest of Missoula in 1994. Killed in the incident were Randy Lynn, a 44-year-old Missoula resident, and 57-year-old Robert Kelly of Alamogordo, New Mexico. US District Judge Donald Molloy ruled that the Forest Service did not provide adequate safety and emergency management training for Kelly and Lynn. Molloy said better training could have saved the men’s lives. The two men died July 29th, 1994, when their plane was dispatched to drop retardant on fires burning in the Butler Creek area. Kelly and Lynn survived the crash and got out of the aircraft, but died of burns suffered in the subsequent explosion and fire.
[Ab note: later an Appeals Court disagreed]
Photos, Videos, & Tributes
- Forest Service Fire Management Today, Vol 55, No. 1, 1995 “In Memoriam”
- USFA Memorial Database: Robert E Kelly | Randy C Lynn and on the National Fallen Firefighters Memorial under Montana
- P2V Airtanker for type of airtanker. Photo credit Mike Meadows
Contributors to this article: Steve Karkanen, Mike Meadows
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The location shown is incorrect. The correct location is 47 08′ 56.02″ X 114 22′ 02.63″. Crash site is close to the middle of the fire scar SW of Squaw now Ch-paa-qn Peak.
Thanks so much for the correction Steve, we got it changed. We sometimes spend quite a bit of time trying to pin point an accurate location for accident sites, often the information in reports is quite vague. Even NTSB locations are not always accurate. We appreciate when folks with local knowledge are able to give us better information.