Marc Olson Remembered for Humble Nature and Passion for Aviation

Nov. 21—Growing up across the street from the Mineral Wells Airport and having a dad who was a U.S. Army helicopter instructor at Fort Wolters, a life in aviation was a natural progression for Marc Thor Olson, North Texan Kent Olson said of his younger brother

Marc, 59, earned his pilot's license at 17 and, after graduating from Mineral Wells High School, he served in the Army for four years, flying helicopters. After leaving the Army, he trained as a pilot and served on active duty in the Air Force for about 10 years flying A-10 aircrafts before joining the Air National Guard, where he continued to fly A-10s.

In 2017, he joined the Colorado wild land fire suppression company CO Fire Aviation.

Marc, who was helping extinguish the Kruger Rock Fire in Colorado on Tuesday, died after the firefighting aircraft he was piloting crashed.

The Kruger Rock Fire was reported just before 7 a.m. Mountain Standard Time southeast of Estes Park in Colorado. Larimer County officials posted in an update on their website that high winds blew a tree onto a nearby powerline, causing it to arc and start the fire.

By 6:30 p.m. MST, the fire was approximately 133 acres with 15% containment, according to the Larimer County website.

At 6:37 p.m. MST, the Larimer County Sheriff's Office received reports of a single-engine air tanker crash south of Estes Park, and the plane crash site was located near the south end of Hermit Park a little over three hours later at 9:49 p.m.

An investigation into the crash will be led by the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board.

CO Fire Aviation posted on its Facebook page Wednesday that the company was "deeply saddened" by the news of Marc's death.

" Marc Thor Olson was a highly decorated veteran of both the Army and Air Force with 32 years of service to our country. During Thor's 42 years of flight, he had amassed more than 8,000 total flight hours with an impressive 1,000 hours of [Night Vision Goggles] flight including in combat and civilian flight," according to the company post.

Marc was the Night Vision Goggles, or NVG, program manager at CO Fire Aviation.

In an interview with Rocky Mountain PBS for its "Behind the Wings" program, which aired in late September, Olson said CO Fire Aviation was working on NVG technology to take advantage of cooler and less windy conditions when fighting wildfires at night.

"The fire doesn't quit at night," he said in the interview. "Now, we don't have to quit at night."

According to Rocky Mountain PBS, Olson's flight was expected to be historic; it would have been the first time a fixed-wing plane was used to fight a wildfire using night vision.

Kent said his brother was passionate about the NVG program. Practically every conversation with Marc ended up becoming about aviation and firefighting, he said.

"He was always studying aviation — that seemed to be his sole focus," Kent said. "Always pushing the edge, always pushing the innovation in aviation in his particular line he was pursuing."

He knew his brother was destined to be an A-10 pilot when Marc and his best friend Mark Smith would shoot bottle rockets at each other in the open fields in Mineral Wells.

"To have fireworks and missiles and things coming at Marc Olson was no big thing — he was used to that," Kent said.

Bottle rockets weren't exclusive to the Fourth of July; Smith said any time he and Marc could get their hands on the bottle rockets, they were shooting them.

Smith, who was best friends with Marc since they were in sixth grade at Lee Junior High School, said it was always evident Marc was thinking beyond high school and aiming for the cockpit.

He and Marc would save their lunch money to buy an hour in a plane so that Marc could fly him around, Smith said.

As they grew older, Smith said, they took different paths but always kept in touch. Marc was the type of friend that he could call and they would pick up from where they left off weeks ago, he said.

"I just can't think of many big events in my life where Marc wasn't there, that he wouldn't make a point to be there, and I tried to do the same for him," Smith said.

Two weeks before the crash, Smith and Marc flew around Utah, Colorado, Wyoming and South Dakota for six days. Looking back on that time, Smith said he was incredibly thankful to have taken the opportunity to spend time with his best friend.

Despite his accomplishments — holding the record for the most hours in an A-10 aircraft, Hawgsmoke competition winner for A-10 pilots two years in a row, to name a few — both Mark and Kent said Marc was humble and unassuming.

"In no way, shape, form or fashion could you be able to tell that this guy's a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force and he's the A-10 pilot. He just never wore that on his sleeve," Smith said.

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