By Laila Kearney
Sept 24 (Reuters) – A former aircraft maintenance director
has pleaded guilty to misleading the U.S. Forest Service to help
his company win a $20 million contract in a case linked to the
deadliest helicopter crash involving on-duty firefighters in
U.S. history.
The 2008 incident near Weaverville, in Northern California,
killed seven firefighters on board the helicopter as well as the
pilot and a U.S. Forest Service official.
Levi Phillips, 46, pleaded guilty on Monday to one count of
conspiring to defraud the Forest Service by creating false
weight, balance and performance information for firefighting
helicopters while he was employed as head of maintenance for
Oregon-based Carson Helicopters Inc, according to court
documents.
As part of a plea deal entered in U.S. District Court in
Medford, Oregon, Phillips will testify against the company’s
vice president, Steven Metheny. Prosecutors say Metheny led the
defrauding scheme.
Phillips, an Oregon resident, faces up to 20 years in prison
when he is sentenced on April 14.
His attorney, federal public defender Brian Butler, did not
return calls.
Phillips and Metheny were indicted by a federal grand jury
in January, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of
Oregon said in a statement.
Metheny was charged with more than 20 criminal counts,
including mail and wire fraud, making false statements to the
forest service, endangering the safety of aircraft in flight and
theft from an interstate shipment, according to a statement by
the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Oregon. His trial
is set to begin on March 4.
Carson Helicopters won a $20 million contract in April 2008
to provide helicopters and related services to the Forest
Service, according to the indictment against the two men.
Phillips in his plea agreement said that to win the
contract, he and Metheny intentionally provided false
information about their helicopters such as maximum payload
capacity.
The faulty data was used by pilots to conduct flights, the
court papers said.
In August 2008, a Sikorsky S-61N helicopter from the men’s
firm swiped a treetop in Northern California during takeoff and
plummeted in the crash that killed seven firefighters, the pilot
and the forest service official. A co-pilot and two firefighters
survived.
An investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board
showed the pilot had followed a Carson Helicopters manual, which
was not approved by the helicopter’s manufacturer or the U.S.
Forest Service and had false weight and takeoff power charts.
(Editing by Alex Dobuzinskis, Barbara Goldberg and Philip
Barbara)
