Two Pilots Killed as Firefighting Helicopter Crashes Near Yosemite
A firefighting helicopter crashed southeast of Ostrander Lake in Yosemite National Park on Sunday, killing both pilots aboard.
Two helicopter pilots died on Sunday afternoon when their aircraft went down while carrying out water drops on a wildfire in Yosemite National Park, officials said.
The pilots, the only people on board, worked for Precision, a contract aviation company. They were supporting a wildland firefighting crew trained to descend from helicopters on ropes into terrain that cannot be reached on foot — a technique known as helitack rappelling.
According to a spokesperson for the Federal Complex Incident Management Team coordinating the response, the Super Puma was using a water bucket to suppress the fire when it crashed southeast of Ostrander Lake. The site lies roughly 9 miles (14 km) south of El Capitan and about 7 miles (11 km) northeast of Wawona.
Officials did not immediately release details of what led to the crash. The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate.
Precision said in a social media post that it was sharing the loss of two beloved team members with "unimaginable sadness and broken hearts," adding that the company was devastated and asking for privacy and compassion for the families and its team. The pilots' names have not been made public.
About 580 personnel are battling the Dome Fire, which began on Sept. 15 near Wawona and has burned roughly 4.7 square miles (12.3 sq km). It is about 15% contained, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.
The deaths add to a grim tally of wildfire personnel killed in the United States this year. At least 14 people have died while assisting with wildfires in 2025, the highest number since 2022, when 25 such deaths were recorded, government reports show.
Among this year's incidents, two helicopter pilots died while fighting a fire in Utah in August, and a pilot in Colorado crashed into a reservoir. Earlier this month, a firefighter suffered a medical emergency while battling a wildfire in Oklahoma, and another was struck by a tree that broke while he was cutting it in Mt. Hood National Forest in Oregon. In August, a wildfire officer was killed after being trapped while evacuating a burning building in Oklahoma, a firefighter died following a medical emergency during a Minnesota wildfire, and a bulldozer operator was overrun by flames in Oregon. In June, four firefighters were trapped in a fire in western Colorado.