Gary R. Eitel

“ In November 1991, Chisum informed me there were other people and companies that were doing illegal things in the Forest Service air tanker program. He disclosed to me that the contractors who had received military aircraft from the Forest Service knew in advance that they would use the planes for profit on non-firefighting uses. He said that other people other than T&G were also doing things with the forest Service military aircraft other than firefighting, and that it was unfair that those entities, other than just T&G --were not the subjects of investigations. ”

“ I was asked to cooperate and I did so, providing all the information and documentation that I possessed concerning T&G and the Kuwait incident, Southern Air and Evergreen involvement, and Roy Reagan and the A-10 program. I relayed the information that Chisum had told me about the true nature of the program to get former military aircraft into the hands of private contractors for non-firefighting purposes, including that Aero Union was headquarters for that program, that the contractors had to use Reagan to obtain type certificates, and that Reagan was located at Aero Union's offices. ”

“ Initially, Forest Service officials denied or avoided the subject; but under pointed questioning by Congressman Rose, they admitted to the A-10 fighter jet air tanker program. This revelation was solely brought about by my investigation, which I had reported to the OIG auditors in 1992, Congressman Rose in 1993 and Agent Widup in early 1993. One of my concerns was that an A-10 fighter jet had no useful purpose as a Forest Service air tanker, especially equipped so that it could be quickly converted again into a jet aircraft "tank killer". ”