Lake County Air Tanker Accident Fatality 1958

On the afternoon of September 15, 1958, a Naval Aircraft Factory N3N-3 biplane air tanker registered N45231 crashed on a 50-acre wildfire near Middletown, California, killing the pilot, George Jess. According to media reports, the fire in grass, brush, and pine timber was under the fire protection of the California Department of Forestry (CDF, now CAL FIRE) and was being suppressed with the assistance of five air tankers. During a retardant ("borate") drop, Jess' aircraft struck a tall tree with its tail, sending it out of control into the ground. Firefighters on the ground reached the accident site at about 1645 and found Jess had already succumbed to head trauma. 

The use of this flight of small aircraft in fire suppression was part of a CDF aerial firefighting experiment that began in 1958. The use of operational air tankers began in the North Sacramento Valley of California in 1955.