After hearing a worrisome noise in the tail section of its helicopter, a County Fire helicopter team—performing cliff rescue training—decided to land its craft at Lake Cachuma’s crew headquarters. While no warning lights came on and the landing was injury-free, said County Fire spokesperson Capt. David Sadecki, repair personnel soon discovered a crack in the tail boom longeron. The chopper will be transported to San Joaquin Helicopters for further evaluation, he said, and it’s not clear yet how long it’ll be out of commission or how much it’ll cost to fix. Officials x-rayed the tail section of County Fire’s other identical helicopter—a 1967 Bell UH1H — but didn’t find anything wrong. Sadecki said the broken chopper’s tail section was going to replaced soon anyway.
