The family of a helicopter pilot who tragically lost his life in a helicopter crash while fighting a wildfire in Southern California has reached a $15 million settlement with the company responsible for maintaining the aircraft. The pilot, Michael Fournier, was making water drops on August 19, 2020 over hilly, rugged terrain when his bright red Bell UH-1H helicopter suddenly plunged into a hillside as he was assisting in battling the Hills Fire burning 10 miles (16 kilometers) south of the small Central Valley town of Coalinga.
Fournier was employed by a private Southern California company that contracts with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire, and other agencies to provide firefighting aircraft and services. The settlement comes after an investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board concluded that the helicopter crashed as a result of a hydraulic system failure. Moments before the crash, Fournier radioed air traffic control to report trouble with the helicopter’s hydraulics.
Guardian Helicopters, based in Fillmore, California, and under contract with Cal Fire to provide emergency services, was the company Fournier was working with at the time of the crash. The $15 million settlement was paid by Rotorcraft Support, Inc., the company responsible for maintaining the helicopter. The details of the settlement were not disclosed, and a phone message left with the helicopter maintenance company was not immediately returned on Friday.
Fournier’s helicopter went down in a remote, hilly, and smoke-filled area that made it challenging for the Fresno County Sheriff’s Department search and rescue team to reach. It took nearly four hours for the fourteen team members in five Jeeps to travel through soft dirt under smoke-filled skies before abandoning the vehicles to walk the last several hundred yards to the crash site. At the crash site, the team carefully wrapped Fournier’s body in an American flag and carried it back to one of the vehicles.