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A helicopter pilot who for the past several years has been working for a Utah company, was fired last month after being sentenced to prison in connection with an overweight helicopter that crashed and killed nine people in California in 2008.

Steve Metheny was charged in 2013 with 23 counts for providing false flight information to win a firefighting contract for a helicopter that crashed and killed seven firefighters and two pilots.

Despite the pending criminal case, Metheny continued working in the aviation industry — and was chief pilot for Air Medical Resource Group, a South Jordan-based medical helicopter company.

Shanon Pollock, vice president of business development for Air Medical Resource Group, confirmed that Metheny had worked for the company as recently as last month, but said the company "terminated employment" shortly after Metheny was sentenced June 16 to more than 12 years in federal prison.

"He performed very well for us while he was here," Pollock told The Tribune. "Unfortunately, circumstances changed."

Pollock said that as chief pilot, Metheny trained others and also covered shifts. According to a January 2015 online staff list, Metheny worked for at least five separate medical helicopter units — including MountainStar Air Care, which has bases in Ogden and Payson.

Pollock said Metheny most often worked out-of-state for the Utah company.

Pollock confirmed that the company was aware of Metheny's legal troubles, but would not comment on whether the charges — or admissions of guilt — had any bearing on Metheny's tasks at work or the decision to hire him.

According to a LinkedIn profile for Metheny, he was promoted to chief pilot in June 2014 — five months before he took a plea deal in the case.

Officials with AMRG were not able to provide an exact start date for Metheny, but said it was sometime between 2012 and 2013.

When asked if Metheny's employment was terminated because he was now a convicted felon or because he is due to report for a lengthy prison sentence in a few short months, Pollock replied, "Both."

Metheny's continued employment was a concern for at least some of the pilots at AMRG, according to posts on an online helicopter forum. One wrote that he refused to fly with Metheny, another said he quit because of Metheny's employment.

That pilot, who asked not to be identified when contacted by The Tribune because it might jeopardize his career in the aviation field, said he had worked at the company for a few months before he found out about Metheny's case by researching the National Transportation Safety Board and other federal documents about the 2008 crash.

"It made me uncomfortable that they were aviation-safety related," he said of Metheny's crimes. "... It was a trust issue. It really was a trust issue."

The day after Metheny was sentenced, the pilot said he spoke with an AMRG representative about what the company planned to do about Metheny. He was told there was no plan, he said, and that Metheny was still in the Rotary Wing Chief Pilot position.

"That was the final straw that broke the camel's back for me," the pilot told The Tribune. "That they kept him on."

The pilot said he then decided to quit AMRG, saying it wasn't a work environment he felt comfortable with any longer.

Metheny was an executive for the Oregon-based Carson Helicopters when he gave the U.S. Forest Service and other helicopter pilots false weight and balance charts and performance standards used to calculate how many passengers and how much cargo they could carry in different conditions.

As a result, a helicopter crashed on Aug. 8, 2008, while taking off with members of a Grayback Forestry crew from Merlin, Ore. The crew was being pulled off the line on the Iron 44 Fire outside of Weaverville, Calif. Four firefighters survived.

Investigators later determined that Metheny and his chief mechanic Levi Phillips had submitted false weight and balance charts to the forest service, and that the plane was 1,400 pounds heavier than the charts indicated.

Metheny was not directly charged with the deaths of the nine people, but U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken for the District of Oregon told the 45-year-old man at his sentencing that by providing false weight information, he put in motion the chain of events that led to the crash.

"In the end, you betrayed all your friends and family and the oaths you have taken," Aiken told Metheny. "If you had been found out and no one died, I would impose the same sentence."

Aiken sentenced Metheny to spend 12 years and seven months in federal prison. He is expected to report to prison in August.

At his June sentencing, Metheny turned to the families of the men who died in the crash, and while not taking responsibility, said he understood their pain. He said he lost his best friend ­— one of the pilots — in the crash.

"What I did was wrong," he said. "It was shortsighted, and I am ashamed for my actions. As a pilot, I would never jeopardize an aircraft of the lives of anyone on board."

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

Twitter: @jm_miller