  We consider a dissipative version of the standard nontwist map. Nontwist
systems present a robust transport barrier, called the shearless curve, that
becomes the shearless attractor when dissipation is introduced. This attractor
can be regular or chaotic depending on the control parameters. Chaotic
attractors can undergo sudden and qualitative changes as a parameter is varied.
These changes are called crises, and at an interior crisis the attractor
suddenly expands. Chaotic saddles are nonattracting chaotic sets that play a
fundamental role in the dynamics of nonlinear systems, they are responsible for
chaotic transients, fractal basin boundaries, chaotic scattering and they
mediate interior crises. In this work we discuss the creation of chaotic
saddles in a dissipative nontwist system and the interior crises they generate.
We show how the presence of two saddles increase the transient times and
analyze the phenomenon of crisis induced intermittency.
