Family of a helicopter pilot killed in a California wildfire reaches a $15 million settlement

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LOS ANGELES (AP) — The family of a helicopter pilot who died when his helicopter crashed in 2020 while fighting a wildfire in Southern California reached a $15 million settlement with the company that maintained the aircraft, their attorneys said Friday.

Michael Fournier was making water drops on Aug. 19, 2020 over hilly, rugged terrain when his bright red Bell UH-1H copter suddenly plunged into a hillside as he was helping battle the Hills Fire burning 10 miles (16 kilometers) south of the small Central Valley town of Coalinga.

Fournier worked for 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 other services.

“The Fournier family’s lawsuit sought answers and accountability, and this result does just that,” said Andrew Robb, one of the attorneys who filed the lawsuit. Robb said the family would not be making any public comments.

An investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board’s concluded that the helicopter crashed because of “a hydraulic system failure.”

Moments before the crash Fournier radioed to air traffic control that he was having trouble with the helicopter’s hydraulics, Robb said.

Fournier was working with Guardian Helicopters, which is based in Fillmore, California and at the time had a contract with Cal Fire to provide emergency services. The settlement was paid by Rotorcraft Support, Inc., the company that maintained the helicopter. A phone message left with the helicopter maintenance company was not immediately returned Friday.

Fournier’s copter went down in a remote, hilly, smoke-filled area that took a Fresno County Sheriff’s Department search and rescue team nearly four hours to reach.

Fourteen team members in five Jeeps traveled for miles through soft dirt under smoke-filled skies, finally abandoning the vehicles to walk the last several hundred yards to the crash site. There, they carefully wrapped the body in an American flag and carried it to one of the vehicles.