CRASH VICTIMS' KIN TRYING TO COPE.

Byline: Deborah Sullivan and Stacy Brown Daily News Staff Writers

The deadliest air crash in the Los Angeles Fire Department's history left the families of the dead and injured firefighters reeling between pride and anguish Tuesday.

As the widow of paramedic Michael Butler made burial plans, the families of helicopter pilot Steven Robinson of Agoura and Firefighter Dennis Silgen of Thousand Oaks anxiously awaited news of the men's prognosis at Los Angeles County/USC Medical Center, where both were listed in serious but stable condition after surgery.

The three men were among five Los Angeles firefighters aboard a rescue helicopter that crashed Monday in Griffith Park while transporting injured Norma Vides, 11, to a hospital. Butler and Firefighters Michael McComb and Eric Reiner were killed, along with the girl. Robinson and Silgen suffered head injuries and multiple fractures.

While investigators try to determine how the crash occurred, the families and friends of the dead and injured confronted the mixture of danger and heroism that makes up a firefighter's job.

Left behind

Fighting back tears and facing life without her husband, Maria Butler reflected on the ironies in his death.

``I asked that if anything were to ever happen to him while on the job, I wanted Eric Reiner to be the one to notify me,'' she said Tuesday. Reiner and Butler were best friends, and Reiner had been the best man at the couple's wedding 18 months ago.

Butler couldn't envision that her husband and Reiner, both 33, would experience the same fate.

On Tuesday at the Canyon Country home she and her husband bought in January, Maria began the daunting task of planning her final goodbye to him, while preparing for life as a single mother to their unborn first child.

``I'm four months pregnant, and Michael was so excited about the baby,'' she said.

Maria had given her husband the good news about her pregnancy Christmas Day.

``He said if it was a boy we would name him Matthew because that name means a gift from God,'' she said. A girl, Maria said, will be named Megan.

Michael Butler always dreamed of being a paramedic, she said. As a young man growing up in Burbank, he lived across the street from a fire captain who encouraged him to pursue his dream. He spent 13 years on the job.

``He loved being able to help people and to comfort them,'' Maria said. ``He was not afraid to die.''

For relatives of Dennis Silgen, the excitement and apprehension of firefighting have been a part of life for three generations.

Silgen was drawn to firefighting by his father-in-law, said his brother, Doug Silgen, 56, who himself became a firefighter after catching his brother's infectious enthusiasm for the profession.

``I'm (a captain) with the Los Angeles County Fire Department because of what I saw my brother doing,'' he said. ``I thought, that looks like a good job and a neat thing to do.''

Doug Silgen said his brother worked at some of the city's busiest fire stations and earned the admiration of his colleagues during a 26-year career.

``He is truly an extraordinary firefighter,'' Doug said.

Dennis Silgen's son, Todd, eventually became a county firefighter by way of his father's example, Doug Silgen said.

For their wives and children, it has been a blessing and a terror.

A heroic flight

``It's scary,'' said his daughter, Paige, 29, throwing her arms protectively around her father as her eyes reddened with tears. ``I'm very proud of them all - my dad and my uncle and my cousin. It's a very brave thing they do. They risk their lives every day, whether they think so or not.''

The worst that firefighters' families imagine occurred Monday, but fire officials are crediting pilot Steve Robinson with averting an even more deadly crash.

``Steve is a very good pilot,'' even among a crew of helicopter fliers trained with near-military rigor, said his supervisor, L.A. Fire Department chief pilot Paul Shakstad.

When the rear rotors broke off the helicopter he was flying Monday, Robinson, 32, maneuvered the failing craft away from homes and trees, crash-landing instead on an expanse of turf.

The helicopter's midair failure over a wooded hillside ``is probably the worst-case scenario a pilot can face,'' Shakstad said.

But Robinson, who worked his way up from firefighter to engineer to pilot during an 11-year career, handled it with levelheaded expertise, colleagues said.

``He's the most competent person I've ever known,'' said Curtis Ogle, 34, a friend and fellow firefighter. ``He is unbelievably talented. If it weren't for his abilities, they would have lost everyone on the (helicopter).''

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3 Photos

Photo: (1) BUTLER

(2) McCOMB

(3) REINER