Senator Tim Sheehy’s bid to scrap firefighting aircraft inspections coincided with his company’s failed safety check
The Montana Republican’s proposal to eliminate rigorous airworthiness checks for private firefighting planes emerged the same month his former company, which has received over $235 million in federal contracts, failed a critical inspection due to a structural defect.
US Senator Tim Sheehy proposed eliminating US Forest Service airworthiness inspections for private firefighting aircraft in March 2025, a move that critics and former officials say created a direct conflict of interest. The proposal coincided with a mid-April 2025 incident where a Forest Service inspector discovered a significant crack in the wing of a Bridger Aerospace scooper, a company founded by Sheehy, which had presented the aircraft as ready for service.
Bridger Aerospace, in which Sheehy held a 21% stake until moving assets into blind trusts in May 2025, has received more than $235 million from the Forest Service since 2021. While Sheehy argued that the inspections were an unnecessary barrier to asset availability, a former government official confirmed to ProPublica that the April inspection revealed a "big crack" in a major component, a finding described by aviation experts as rare and potentially catastrophic.
Draft documents for the inspection-elimination proposal, which leaked from Sheehy’s Senate office in mid-April, were edited by a policy adviser and a Bridger lobbyist, and shaped by the United Aerial Firefighters Association (UAFA), an industry group where Sheehy serves on the founding board. The proposal aligns with broader efforts to consolidate wildfire agencies and increase private contracting, despite historical data showing that rigorous inspections have significantly reduced aviation fatalities.
Concerns about safety oversight are heightened by a shortage of Forest Service aviation safety inspectors, with six resigning or retiring last year and over 20% of positions currently unfilled. The 2002 crashes that killed five pilots, both caused by undetected wing cracking, led to the implementation of the current airworthiness program, which has seen accident rates plummet since 2010. Sheehy’s office maintains that he has no conflict of interest, citing the blind trusts, though ethics experts note the trusts are managed by executives at Tallgrass, a company previously run by Sheehy’s brother, Matt, who was also an early investor in Bridger.
Bridger’s first scooper, which Sheehy described as "brand new" in his 2023 book, was actually built in 1985 and had undergone extensive repairs, including a 2012 fix for a crack in the left wing spar. Despite previously warning shareholders of "substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern," Bridger reported a profit for the first time since going public in 2024. The company stated that safety is the bedrock of its operations and that it welcomes the rigorous certification process, even as it advocates for industry-led inspection standards.
