Carson Helicopters’ former vice president Steven Metheny last week was sentenced by a U.S. District Court in Medford, Ore., to 151 months in prison for making false statements and conspiracy to defraud the U.S. Forest Service (USFS). Metheny’s statements became a significant part of the investigation into the 2008 crash of a Carson S-61 while it was performing firefighting services on behalf of the USFS in Northern California. That accident killed nine people and seriously injured four others.
Metheny admitted that in 2008, he submitted bid proposals to the USFS with falsified weight-and-balance records to make Carson helicopters appear capable of meeting certain minimum payload specifications that were used in evaluating whether the company would be awarded $51 million in contracts. The falsified weight-and-balance information was placed in the Carson aircraft flight manuals and later used by pilots who were unaware the data could cause them operate in an overweight condition, thereby endangering their safety during flight.
Carson’s former director of maintenance Levi Phillips cooperated with the investigation and received only two years in prison following a guilty plea.