With this truck, we'll be the first to the crash site

A million dollar airport rescue vehicle flipped upside down during a training exercise. Officials at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport told Channel 2 they still don't know what caused the most expensive accident involving a fire vehicle in Atlanta city history.

The vehicle overturned during a training mission, injuring two firefighters. Now, there are questions about the safety of a very expensive truck that is a key element in runway emergencies.

The City of Atlanta owns 10 heavy-duty airport fire engines at a cost of more than a million dollars each. One of the trucks is out of service after a rollover crash.

One firefighter has a broken hand, one has a separated shoulder as a result of a rollover crash that happened last Tuesday.

"We are obviously reviewing the information thoroughly. That does include talking to the manufacturer and employees," said John Kennedy, Director of Public Affairs at Hartsfield-Jackson Airport.

The airport firefighters were in a training exercise on the airport's inner perimeter roadway when, while going around a bend, the truck flipped.

"It's basically testing the vehicles for their intended purpose in the event of a real situation," said Kennedy.

One industry source claimed it's a situation of driver error, an overcorrection at high speed, but the airport said the investigation isn??t over.

The vehicle is called an ARFF -- Aircraft Rescue and Firefighting vehicle. The city bought 10 ARFFs in the last three years, a total of some $12 million.

The manufacturer, Oshkosh of Wisconsin, boasts the ARFFs are the fastest, most capable firefighting engines in the world. One in Atlanta is out, making the accident the most costly loss of a fire vehicle in Atlanta history.

"I believe we will complete a review in a week or so and in that time, we??ll have some answers for you," said Kennedy.

The fire engines do have a "black box" of sorts on board, so data can be retrieved as to what went wrong. The fire chief at the airport said that in general, he's been very pleased with the performance of the vehicles.

The other nine are still in service.

Now, if it had just burst into flames whan it rolled over that would be classic.

Seriously though, I'm glad no one was killed.

I believe those are actually pretty easy to roll. The problem is that they carry a LOT of water (or some liquid) so when you turn them quickly the water sloshes, whip them in the other direction... over you go.

I saw a program on a new version of one of those that had some sort of automatic system that kept the driver form rolling it.

Auto-x on airport runway goes terribly wrong when firefighter tries handbrake turn

That large sloping bank right behind the truck couldn't have had anything to do with it...

Scandinavian Flick gone horribly wrong...

i recently watched a tv show where that truck was featured. at low speeds, it can drive along a 35 degree pitched incline! it's very fast for a fire truck, though - as much as I hate to say it, i'm going to guess that 'speed contributed to this accident'.

This is why we need to drop the speed limit EVERYWHERE to 30 MPH. That's it. Oh, include aircraft in that. Yeah, think of the fuel that it will save....

aircooled wrote: I believe those are actually pretty easy to roll. The problem is that they carry a LOT of water (or some liquid) so when you turn them quickly the water sloshes, whip them in the other direction... over you go. I saw a program on a new version of one of those that had some sort of automatic system that kept the driver form rolling it.

Wouldn't they have some baffles in place to keep the sloshing to a minimum?

Older metal tanks may have baffles in them, but many newer trucks have plastic tanks. Most of our trucks do not have baffles in the water tanks. They are not too bad when they are full, but they become very tricky to drive at half capacity. But, even in the best case scenario, they don't corner well. Our lightest truck is around 30,000 pounds when it's full.

On the road, fire trucks are usually either full or empty, as tank water is usually gone in about three minutes.