I went to Coulson Aviation's Twitter account looking for some photos of their operations in Australia when I came upon this tweet reporting on an accident involving one of their 737 Fireliners, T-139 in western Australia. I am very happy that both pilots are ok.
One of our 737 FireLiners, Tanker 139, operating in Western Australia was involved in an accident while tasked to a fire Monday, 6 February 2023. Both pilots walked away from the crash. More here: https://t.co/PsObuOuDOr
— Coulson Aviation (@CoulsonAviation) February 6, 2023
Here is a statement from Wayne Coulson, he says in part
We are very grateful the two team members on Tanker 139 are safe.
We are offering all the support we can to our local and international crews. We’re also grateful for the support being provided by our firefighting and aviation industry colleagues in Western Australia.
According to media reports on WA Today and ABC Net AU T-139 crashed in the Fitzgerald River National Park 460 kilometers or 285 miles southeast of Perth Australia. See either media report for a map.
My prayers go out to the two pilots and their families, Coulson Aviation, and local officials in the area of the crash site. I am very happy to be able to report on a tanker crash where both pilots survived.
Added at 4 PM EST on February 6, 2023: Fire Aviation has done their usual good job reporting on this crash in a February 6th post. In this article, Fire Aviation also reports that after Coulson finished converting the 737 to configuration as a Fireliner Tanker, the T-139 Fireliner flew its first fire in July 2022 in the U.S. and arrived in Australia in December 2022. Their article is worth a read.
