Statement from Coulson Group CEO Wayne Coulson

We are grateful for the support being provided to our team members in Australia, including the two experienced pilots who survived the accident in Western Australia.

The two pilots were flying B-737 FireLiner Tanker 139 over the Fitzgerald River National Park fire on Monday when the aircraft went down.

Both have received medical attention, have been released from hospital and are now recuperating. They were deeply shaken to have something like this happen while fighting for the community and are grateful they were able to walk away from the accident.

Tanker 132, a Coulson C-130 and its crew, were tasked to the same fire as Tanker 139 and were immediately released from the fire operations. Support is in place for those team members.

Today, the crews operating the three Coulson Aviation Large Air Tankers in Australia are on a stand down day for welfare to rest the teams. The support of DFES and NSW RFS in enabling this is appreciated.

We will work with DFES, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau and any other relevant authorities to understand the cause of the crash.

We’re not in a position to speculate or make further comment at this time about the cause of the accident.