Nearly two decades after Air Tanker 130 crashed fighting the Cannon Fire in Walker, Mono County, a new memorial for victims Steve Wass, Craig LaBare and Mike Davis was unveiled Friday near the crash site.
The brick and stone dedication along Highway 395 replaced an aging memorial that was built shortly after the accident on June 17, 2002.
Pilot Wass and co-pilots LaBare and Davis were fighting an uncontained wildfire in Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, 25 miles north of Yosemite National Park, when an in-flight structural failure caused the aircraft to plunge to the ground, killing them.
The fire jumped across the highway and the Walker River and had already burned 10 structures by the next day, drawing nearly 700 firefighters from California, Oregon and Nevada.
An investigation by the U.S. Forest Service found that a structural failure snapped off the plane’s wings and sent the fuselage to the ground in a fireball.
Later that month in 2002, family and friends gathered at the Douglas High School football field to pay tribute to the “heroes” that died. The first memorial was built soon afterwards.
“Fire staff attended the rededication ceremony and unveiling of the new memorial today for the crew of Tanker 130 near Walker, Ca,” forest officials tweeted. “Steve Wass, Craig LaBare, and Mike Davis lost their lives when the tanker crashed during suppression operations on the Cannon fire in June of 2002.”
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