NC National Guard C-130 crashes while fighting wildfires in SD

"PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. (AFNS) -- In what officials describe as "a prudent measure," all military C-130 aircraft equipped with the Modular Airborne Fire Fighting System have been placed on operational hold after one
of the aircraft crashed Sunday, July 1."

If I'm not mistaken, I believe it was tail number 31458. I have three pictures posted of the aircraft on Flightaware (Tail Number: ANG31458) prior to the orange "7" decal being added.

http://flightaware.com/photos/aircraft/ANG31458

does anyone know the tail number for sure yet?. i was just taking pictures of 2 c 130s departing for south dakota yesterday at approxmitly 530pm mt .. one is ang21464 and the other afrc47317

I have a bunch of photos of those MAFFs C-130's from a training exercise they did at KGYH few years ago. Several are posted here on Flightaware. I'll have to look through my files to see if I have that one.
Many thoughts and prayers for the casualties and their families.

The C 130 is such a proven and reliable aicraft it is hard to imagine one crashing unless it was CFIT. Sympathies to the crew and their families.

Ok they were number 5 and 6 . Sad indeed .. they are working hard here in Montana helping in the fire fighting efforts . I sat and watched 6 tankers and 2 c 130s working yesterday for 5hrs. Very cool and skilled pilots

It was actually #7 and oddly enough one the injured but not deceased airman is a guy that I didn't know to well but went to high school with....Thoughts and prayers go out to him, his family and all of the other men and Servicemen and their families.

That's sad...these guys do a great job at what they do, and with all the wildfires going on lately it's hard to lose one of these.

The tail number is 93-1458. MAFFS 7 from Charlotte. I just retired as a navigator from the NCANG back in the fall and logged many hrs on this tail doing this mission and others. These were some of the best aviators that were lost and 2 that were injured. This accident is felt deeply in Charlotte and throughout the ANG community.

Here is a good tribute video describing the mission of aerial firefighting.

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DwD6sV2_UV8U&v=wD6sV2_UV8U&gl=US

These C-130s are good for the job. The retardant is around 28000 lbs released within about 3-5 secs. The plane can airdrop heavy equipment up to 42000 lbs so this mission can be done. Civilian tankers were not as well maintained like the military tankers before the crash in 2004. That was an old A model from the 1950s. Today's oldest C-130 that does the MAFFS mission was built in 1992-1993.

Ranger Magazine (subscription) said the company that made the system to discharge the retardant went out of business last year. In the article "The loss of technical help, especially, could prove troublesome while the Forest Service works out bugs in the latest-generation MAFFS II system in use since last year, he suggested.
"They haven't really used them enough, I don't think, to find out some of the problems," Archer said of the Forest Service and its workers contracted to maintain the MAFFS."
Don't know what the bugs are but I'm sure they will be studied by the investigators.