Tanker 60 makes emergency landing at Chico

Air Tanker 60, an Erickson Aero Tanker DC-7B, made an emergency landing at the Chico, California airport Thursday morning. A person who was monitoring radio traffic told Fire Aviation that the pilot declared an emergency after shutting down the #3 engine and losing all hydraulics. The video was apparently captured by someone on the nearby Eaton Road that borders the airport.

The pilots deserve kudos for keeping the aircraft on the runway.

Click on the image above and you’ll be taken to the Action News Now website where you can view it. The resolution on the video is very poor, but you can pretty much tell what is happening.

Tanker 60
File photo of Tanker 60 taken by Bill Gabbert at Madras, Oregon June 13, 2016.

This DC-7B is 58 years old, manufactured in 1958. Over the last three to four years several P2V air tankers in that same age range have had serious problems with hydraulics that resulted in problems as they landed.

In 2006 a P2V operated by Neptune lost an engine due to a bad piston shortly after taking off from Chico. Pilot Dale Dahl dumped the retardant east of the airport and landed without incident.

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7 thoughts on “Tanker 60 makes emergency landing at Chico”

  1. Tanker 60 was back at McClellan flying the Trailhead fire today. Didn’t waste anytime getting her back in the air.

  2. Love the P-3s in the back ground of the FF interview.

    And one more thing… “if God is your Co-pilot. Switch seats.”.

  3. Those DC-7s have preformed very well. Douglas built a tough aircraft. I expect that the maintenance crews will have 60 back up and running in no time.

  4. Hydraulics are independent of engine operation
    in a DC-7 . Probably two separate things unless
    #3 slung something into a hydraulic line.
    But as is said “God is my Co-pilot,Murphy is the
    Flight Engineer.”
    The Emergency brakes are air brakes.
    the handle is on the Captain’s side.
    Good job handling that,guys…

    1. Note what I meant was there are two engine driven pumps one on #3 and one on#2. one pump slows things
      down but a total failure is rare..

  5. The main concern is the crew and aircraft are basically safe! Just curious, do Air Tanker pilots talk about or practice emergency procedures regularly? I ask because of the video. I understand the cost, but what price do you put on human life? I did fly in the military and had a number of emergencies, nature of the beast, but truly believe the redundant training, not just experience saved my butt a number of times.

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