Bernalillo County, New Mexico, agreed to a $2 million settlement with the families of four first responders killed in a 2022 helicopter crash that federal investigators blamed on poor maintenance and a known engine defect.
The settlement, reached on June 19, resolves two lawsuits filed in state district court by the families of Undersheriff Larry Koren, Deputy Michael Levison, Lt. Fred Beers, and Fire Rescue Specialist Captain Matthew King. All four men died on July 16, 2022, when their Bell UH-1H helicopter, a Vietnam-era aircraft the lawsuits called a "death trap", lost engine power roughly 500 to 600 feet above the ground in northern New Mexico. They were flying home after dropping water on a 75-acre wildfire near Las Vegas, New Mexico, about 122 miles northeast of Albuquerque.
The county will pay the $2 million as a lump sum, split equally among the plaintiffs. For the families, the money does not come close to answering for what went wrong.
Daniel Levison wanted $200 million, and a reason to believe the county learned something
Daniel Levison, the father of Deputy Michael Levison, told the Albuquerque Journal he accepted the settlement to move forward with his life. But he made clear the figure felt hollow.
"I want to go on with my life, so I'm OK with it, but to be honest with you, I wish it was $200 million because maybe they would have changed some of their policies. Maybe it would open their eyes to safety issues."
That frustration did not come from nowhere. The families' lawsuits alleged the crash was "entirely preventable", the result of poor maintenance on an aging helicopter that the county and the Bernalillo County Sheriff's Office knew had numerous engine fatigue cracks before the fatal flight.
Elizabeth Harrison, an attorney for the Levison family, framed the settlement as a hard-won step toward accountability.
"For two years, the Levison family has fought to hold the County accountable for the preventable tragedy that took Michael's life. Nothing can ever ease the pain of his loss, but this settlement marks a step toward making the future safer for deputies like him."
Brian Egolf, another attorney representing the families, offered a blunter summary: "They perished in a horrible crash."
NTSB found a metal fragment in the oil, and nobody acted on it
The National Transportation Safety Board's final report confirmed what the families alleged. A gear inside the helicopter's engine failed due to fatigue, shearing a driveshaft and seizing the gearbox. The engine lost all power. The helicopter's main generator had already been removed. At just 500 to 600 feet, flying into a setting sun, the crew had almost no margin to attempt autorotation, the emergency glide maneuver that is a helicopter pilot's last resort when power fails.
The NTSB found that the low altitude, combined with the sun angle, "may have contributed to the unsuccessful autorotation following the total loss of engine power." But the report pointed to a deeper failure: a metal fragment had been found in the helicopter's oil before the crash. Lab results from that sample were never used to troubleshoot the problem.
AP News reported the NTSB's conclusion directly: "Had the operator conducted an analysis, they could have potentially identified the deteriorating component and impending failure." In plain English, someone had a warning sign in hand and did not act on it. Four men paid for that failure with their lives.
The lawsuits themselves made no mention of marijuana use or impaired flying, a detail worth noting given later developments inside the sheriff's office.
Metro 2 went down at 10 p.m. on a Saturday with no survivors
The helicopter, designated Metro 2, belonged to the sheriff's office Metro Air Support Unit. The unit handled search and rescue, wildfire support, and assistance with arrests. On the night of July 16, 2022, the crew had been making bucket drops on the East Mesa Fire near Las Vegas, New Mexico. The crash occurred around 10 p.m. as they headed back to Albuquerque.
The Bernalillo County Sheriff's Office confirmed the loss in stark terms. Initial reports from the scene identified three BCSO personnel and one county fire employee aboard, with no known survivors. The sheriff's office asked the public to keep the families in their prayers.
Koren, the undersheriff, was the agency's sole helicopter pilot. His death alone was enough to ground the entire air support program. Fox News confirmed at the time that both the sheriff's office and the NTSB opened investigations into the crash.
First responders face hazards every shift, from drone strikes on police helicopters during wildfire operations to cardiac emergencies on routine calls. But the risks these four men faced were not the ordinary dangers of the job. They were flying in a machine their own employer allegedly knew was failing.
Sheriff Allen relaunched the unit, then removed the firefighters
After the crash, the Metro Air Support Unit shut down entirely. In December 2023, Sheriff John Allen purchased a new helicopter and relaunched the program. He told the Albuquerque Journal the office "owed it to the families we lost... to rebuild MASU the right way."
Allen also said the county had "taken every possible step to ensure such a tragedy does not happen again." But the rebuild did not go smoothly.
In December 2025, Allen removed Bernalillo County Fire and Rescue from the air support unit altogether. His stated reason: a fire department policy that allowed firefighters to smoke marijuana while off duty. He also cited the 2022 crash as a factor.
Daniel Levison saw that move differently. He believed the sheriff's office was deflecting blame.
"There is so much that they knew on that program that is being swept under the table. They had to have a way out to save face, so they blame it on the fire department."
The lawsuits centered on maintenance failures and known engine defects, not on anything the fire department did or did not do. Whether the removal of firefighters from the unit addressed the actual causes of the crash, or simply gave the sheriff's office a convenient explanation, remains an open question. Cases involving law enforcement leadership and accountability often hinge on whether institutions confront the real failures or rearrange the org chart and move on.
$2 million for four lives, and unanswered questions about what changed
The settlement resolves the legal claims, but it does not resolve the larger picture. The NTSB identified a specific, preventable chain of failures: a fatigued gear, a metal fragment in the oil that nobody analyzed, a missing generator, and a crew sent into the air in a helicopter described in court filings as a Vietnam-era "death trap." The county paid $2 million. That works out to $500,000 per life lost.
On the anniversary of the crash, the sheriff's office posted a tribute on Facebook. "Today, we remember not only how they died but also how they lived," the statement read. "Their service, their laughter, their leadership, their friendships, and the impact they left behind still carry through the people who knew them and the agencies they helped shape."
Remembering how they lived is the easy part. The harder question, whether the county has genuinely fixed the institutional negligence that put those four men in a failing helicopter, is one a $2 million check cannot answer. When law enforcement officers fight legal battles over how their institutions treat them, the outcomes often reveal whether the system values the people inside it or just the appearance of reform.
Daniel Levison wanted the settlement large enough to force a change in policy. He got a fraction of that. The families got closure on paper. Whether the county got the message is another matter entirely.
Four men climbed into a helicopter their employer knew was broken. The county wrote a check. Accountability demands more than that.
