Gert Marais reported a Mayday and said, “I’m going down,” just before his single-engine air tanker crashed while he was fighting the 9,800-acre Fort Carson fire last week, the National Transportation Safety Board reports.
But the preliminary report released Thursday by the transportation board does not identify the cause of the crash.
Marais, 42, of Fort Benton, Mont., was a pilot and mechanic and worked as a contractor for Aero Applicators of Sterling. He was flying an Air Tractor AT-602 carrying 500 gallons of water and Class A foam.
After a practice run, Marais released his load 500 feet west of the target, right on top of a U.S. Forest Service agent and his car.
A second or two later, the agent told investigators, he heard Marais report a series of Maydays and say, “I’m going down.”
The agent watched the plane’s right wing hit the ground at 6:10 p.m. on a grassy hill just off Colorado 115.
A funeral for Marais, who was a native of South Africa, will be today in Montana.
His wife, Esme, and the couple’s children had planned to move to Sterling this summer.
