The three were identified Wednesday by the Washoe County, Nev., coroner's office as 25-year-old Zachary Jake Vander Griend, of Missoula; 41-year-old Greg Gonsioroski, of Baker; and the company's chief pilot, Gene Wahlstrom, 61, of Hunstville, Utah.
Wahlstrom spent a lot of time in Missoula, but his family had its permanent home in Utah.
The crash came as a stunning blow to the company and its employees.
Neptune President Kristen Schloemer-Nicolarsen said she appreciated the care and concern shown by Missoulians toward the company over the past few days.
“We appreciate so much the support of the community,” she said. “Right now, we just need to be spending time with the families. We'll talk about everything else later.”
Wahlstrom, who joined the company in 1999, was the subject of a Missoulian story in March, shortly after Neptune's 22 pilots finished a training course in Seattle.
“This business has inherent risks,” said Wahlstrom. “You're taking an 80,000-pound plane and flying at low altitudes and low speeds of about 140 mph. You're working in mountains and around hazards of power lines, antennas and trees.”
In a news release issued Wednesday evening, the company praised all three men.
“On behalf of all of us at Neptune, we want to express our deepest gratitude and love for the crew of T09 and their families,” the release stated. “Gene, Greg and Zach will live forever in the memories of everyone at Neptune Aviation.”
Gonsioroski served as the downed tanker's first officer, and began his career at the company as a mechanic before earning his pilot's license. His dream was to captain a tanker and he “was well on his way,” the company said, earning his rating on the P2 in 2006.
“Greg was a superior mechanic, as well as a dedicated and knowledgeable first officer,” the company's release said. “He was a family man with great integrity. He loved his wife and three children and always offered to share family moments with co-workers and friends.”
Zachary Vander Griend was one of the company's newest employees, and he served on Tanker 09 as the mechanic.
“He came to us as an eager, driven and energetic ... mechanic,” the company release said.
But he was also a man who dreamed of flying as a boy and had earned his pilot's license by age 17.
“He made a great impression on everybody he came in contact with,” the company said.
While the company deals with the emotional wreckage stemming from the crash, investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board are still trying to figure out precisely what went wrong Monday night.
Until that investigation is complete, the U.S. Forest Service said Wednesday that it will not ground Neptune's other firefighting planes.
Rose Davis, a spokeswoman for the Forest Service's Northern Region office in Missoula, said the agency needs to know much more about the crash before making any decisions about the company's planes or its five-year contract with the agency.
The lead investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board said one of the plane's engines caught fire before the Neptune P2V-7 plane crashed about a half-mile from the airport. However, he said there is little history of such problems with P2Vs, and that investigators were dealing with what appeared to be an anomaly.
“The NTSB as well as Neptune are committed to finding the cause of this disaster, and Neptune is providing technical expertise and its entire resources to that end,” the company said in a second press statement issued Wednesday night.
Prior to the Labor Day crash, Neptune had had two fatal crashes, in 1994 and 1998. And the company's planes - along with those of other private contractors - were grounded in 2004 as the Forest Service examined their safety records and histories.
In March, however, the Missoula company was awarded a new five-year contract with the Forest Service for use of its dozen tankers.
Davis said the Forest Service would wait until the NTSB's full investigation is complete before making any decision about the contract. While the information that an engine burst into flames is useful, it's not enough.
“The question would be why did it catch fire,” said Davis. “We need more precise information. Then we will be able to work with the company and look at the mechanical parts.”
Any decision about the company's contract would ultimately be made by agency officials in Washington, D.C., she said.
“We don't want to be premature in our reaction,” she said. “This contract is a big part of the livelihood for these companies. Plus, we're still in the middle of the fall firefighting season in California.”
Reporter Michael Moore can be reached at 523-5252 or by e-mail at mmoore@missoulian.com.
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