Firefighting aircraft at risk The safety of a fleet of nearly 800 firefighting aircraft, many of them aging, converted warplanes, has raised controversy for years as the number of tragic air accidents mount. The fleet suffered another fatal accident Monday when an air tanker crashed on takeoff Monday in Reno causing the death of the three people onboard. The plane had made retardant drops on the Burnside Fire south of Lake Tahoe, and was taking off to fight a different California fire when witnesses say the plane’s engine caught fire. The incident was not an isolated mishap, according to an Associated Press review of planes owned and contracted to the U.S. Forest Service. Since 1991, 27 people have died in the crashes of air tankers either operated by or contracted to the U.S. Forest Service. According to a February Scripps Howard article, 28 Forest Service aircraft have crashed between 2002 and 2006....