logging founded 1963 headquarters perkasie pennsylvania u.s. products commercial helicopters website carsonhelicopters.com carson helicopters inc is a helicopter operating company based in perkasie pennsylvania united states . carson operates a fleet of sikorsky s 61 helicopters in aerial lift services and aerial firefighting . carson is known for its development of the carson blade for the s 61 and h 3 sea king . 1 incidents and accidents edit a carson helicopter s 61n fire king being refueled during firefighting operations in southern river western australia . a carson helicopters fire king drops on the 2007 wsa lightning complex fire . a carson helicopters fire king drops on the 2007 wsa lightning complex fire . on 9 june 2008 workers from carson helicopters sparked a fire in the great dismal swamp national wildlife refuge which burned for 111 days . 2 carson helicopters had been in the process of completing a 1 110 acre clearing project to remove trees damaged by hurricane isabel in 2003 when sparks from logging equipment touched off the blaze 3 a federal contract with carson helicopters allowed the company to keep valuable cedar recovered during the clean up effort in exchange for also removing unusable timber . 4 the fire was declared out on october 7 2008 . total cost to suppress the 4 month 4 884 acre blaze has been estimated at over 12.5 million . 5 on 5 august 2008 a carson helicopters sikorsky s 61n tail number n612az 6 crashed on take off . according to the ntsb nine people were killed . these were the pilot in command roark schwanenberg 54 of lostine forest service safety official jim ramage 63 and seven firefighters shawn blazer 30 of medford ; scott charlson 25 of phoenix ore. ; matthew hammer 23 of grants pass ; edrik gomez 19 of ashland ; bryan rich 29 of medford ; david steele 19 of ashland ; and steven caleb renno 21 of cave junction . the copilot and three firefighters escaped the burning wreckage and survived with serious injuries . the ntsb s preliminary report determined that the cause was a loss of power on take off probably caused by an engine failure . in january 2010 the ntsb issued its final report finding that the probable causes of this accident were several actions by carson helicopters intentional understatement of the helicopter s empty weight ; alteration of the power available chart to exaggerate the helicopter s lift capability ; using unapproved torque in performance calculations ; and that additional causes were insufficient oversight by the u.s. forest service and the federal aviation administration . 7 8 relatives of the victims concerned by the change in the ntsb report filed a lawsuit against general electric and on march 27 2012 a jury unanimously ruled that the primary cause of the accident was the failure of the ge ct 58 engines . in february 2013 two carson helicopters former employees were indicted over charges related to the august 2008 crash . a federal grand jury in medford oregon indicted steven metheny a former vice president of carson and levi phillips the former maintenance chief of the company . charges of conspiracy to defraud the united states were filed against both with metheny also being charged with other violations including mail fraud wire fraud making false statements to the forest service and endangering the safety of an aircraft in flight . the findings of the national transportation safety board in 2010 stated there was intentional wrong doing by carson helicopters that under stated the weight of the sikorsky s 61n helicopter and over stated its performance in their bid to the usfs on 20 million in contracts for seven helicopters . the august 2008 accident was then directly due to this understatement of weight and overstatement of performance . 9 in september 2013 former maintenance chief of carson levi phillips admitted fraud and pleaded guilty in a deal that includes his full cooperation with the investigation and testifying against former carson vp metheny 10 in june 2015 former carson vp steven metheny was sentenced to 12 years 7 months in prison for falsifying documents that led to the 2008 crash . 11 references edit carson composite main rotor blade . carson helicopters http hamptonroads.com 2008 06 dismal swamp fire spreading suffolk moving toward nc http hamptonroads.com 2008 06 inquiry begins pinpoint cause fire dismal swamp http articles.dailypress.com 2006 06 20 news 0606200091 1 atlantic white cedar hurricane isabel new trees http articles.dailypress.com 2011 10 26 news dp nws cp dismal swamp 20111026 1 invasive plants chris lowie refuge faa registry . federal aviation administration . crash during takeoff of carson helicopters august 5 2008 ntsb aar 10 06 firefighter fatalities in the united states in 2008 see appendix a september 2009 fema former employees of carson helicopters indicted over fatal iron 44 fire crash . wildfiretoday.com . sanne specht . official admits fraud in copter crash case . mailtribune.com . bill gabbert . former vp of carson helicopters sentenced to 12 years in prison . wildfiretoday.com . external links edit carson helicopters on airliners.net retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title carson helicopters & oldid 743216686 categories helicopter operatorsprivately held companies based in pennsylvaniaamerican companies established in 1963companies based in bucks county pennsylvaniaaerial firefightinglogging in the united states1963 establishments in pennsylvania navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages fran ais edit links this page was last modified on 8 october 2016 at 15 23 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view