Our condolences to the Knight family and the US Forest Service of Colorado. Pilot Leonard Knight, 52, a veteran fire aviator died Tuesday July 30, 2002. Leonard was killed when his Aerospatiale SA-315B Lama helicopter crashed while he was dropping water on hotspots at the Big Elk Fire near Rocky Mountain National Park.

     Leonard was a Nebraska native who was also a helicopter pilot in Vietnam and earned a Purple Heart. The helicopter Leonard was flying had been totally rebuilt in 2002, had more than 300 hours of inspection this year, and was owned by a Fort Collins company and leased to a Boulder firefighting unit. The crash occured 3 miles west of where an air tanker crashed 2 weeks ago. After the incident investigators found that the turbine engine of the helicopter overheated and partially melted.