Gamle fly bekjemper branner i USA

Bildet viser en maskin av typen som havarerte. Det er en P-2V Neptune som er et ombygget anti-ubåtfly fra 50-tallet. Her slipper den flemmehendende væske under en jobb tilsvarende den for det havarerte flyet.

RENO, Nev. (AP) - A firefighting aircraft crashed into rugged terrain near the Utah-Nevada border as it dropped retardant on a 5,000-acre wildfire, killing the two Idaho men on board.

The air tanker went down Sunday afternoon in the Hamblin Valley area of western Utah, Bureau of Land Management officials said.

The two pilots were fighting the fire, which began burning Friday night after a lightning strike in eastern Nevada. The fire spread into Utah on Saturday night, but most of the blaze remained in Nevada, about 150 miles northeast of Las Vegas.

A helicopter crew saw the crash and told ground crews that "it didn't look good," Iron County sheriff's Detective Sgt. Jody Edwards in Utah told The Salt Lake Tribune.

BLM ground crews and air crew members worked to hold the fire back from the wreckage. Sheriff's deputies drove and hiked for more than an hour to reach the site and confirm that the pilots had died, Edwards said. The fire later overwhelmed the crash site, Edwards said.

The sheriff's office identified the pilots as Todd Neal Tompkins and Ronnie Edwin Chambless, both of Boise, Idaho.

Tompkins and Chambless were flying a P-2V air tanker that is owned by Neptune Aviation Services of Missoula, Mont. A medical examiner was helping authorities recover the bodies Sunday night.

There was no immediate word on what caused the crash.