Coulson Aviation is an aviation company headquartered in Port Alberni, British Columbia, Canada. The company's fleet specialises in air tankers used for aerial firefighting.[1] It operates in Canada, the United States, Australia and Chile.[2]
The company operates both fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft. The company's operations included helicopter logging, forest fire suppression, power-line construction, airliner passenger, transport, and other industrial heavy lift operations. Coulson Aviation (USA) Inc. is a subsidiary of Coulson Aircrane Ltd. Coulson Aviation contract rotary and fixed-wing aircraft to Australia and the US from Canada.[3]
Active fleet
Coulson Aviation currently has 21 aircraft (excluding business jets) active as of July 20, 2024
Bomber 210 (737-3H4) (N138CG) - also known as 'Marie Bashir'.[4] This aircraft was purchased in 2019 by the Australian New South Wales Rural Fire Service[5] and is operated under contract by Coulson.
Coulson Aviation previously operated two Martin Marsflying boats, the Philippine Mars and Hawaii Mars.
Past deployments
On 5 December 2022 Coulson aviation sent one of its C130Hs to Busselton Regional Airport as part of a 4-year firefighting contract. The aircraft did weekly equipment tests.[7]
Incidents
In 2020, a Coulson Lockheed C-130 Hercules aircraft crashed while aerial firefighting for the New South Wales Rural Fire Service during Australia's black summer bushfires, resulting in the deaths of three American firefighters.[8] The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) determined the cause of the collision was likely due to the dangerous weather conditions, low-level wind shear and an increased tailwind, leading to the aircraft stalling while releasing fire retardant foam at a low height and airspeed and colliding with terrain.
In 2023, a Boeing 737-300 aircraft known as Bomber 139 and operated by Coulson Aviation crashed in the Fitzgerald River National Park in the Great Southern Region of Western Australia while fighting multiple fires.[9] The cause of the crash was the pilots dumping fire retardant below the minimum altitude. The final report was published by the ATSB on 6th of November 2024.
