SAR / Navy - Sea Kings grounded i Canada

Sea King helicopters grounded after new accident

Four months after the head of Canada¹s air force expressed his utmost confidence in the Sea King helicopter, the military has grounded the aircraft indefinitely.

On March 25 air force chief Lt.-Gen. Yvan Blondin told senators he wasn¹t worried about ongoing delays of the arrival of the Cyclone maritime helicopter, the chopper that is to replace the Sea Kings.
"It is not like I am planning to park the Sea King in July and I have a problem," he explained to the senate defence committee. "I am comfortable in flying the Sea King for the next five years."

On Tuesday, the Canadian Forces did park the Sea Kings after one of them tipped forward and smashed five of its rotor blades Monday night on the tarmac at Canadian Forces Base Shearwater in Halifax.
None of the four crew members on board the helicopter were injured.

The aircraft had landed after a training mission and tipped forward while its rotors were spinning.

The accident is under investigation.

The grounding of the Sea Kings will raise further questions about the problem-plagued program to replace those helicopters. Canada has ordered 28 Cyclone helicopters from U.S. aerospace giant Sikorsky.

The original contract called for the first Cyclone to be delivered in November 2008, with deliveries of all 28 helicopters completed by early 2011. But Sikorsky has yet to turn over a single helicopter to Canada under the $5.7-billion program.

The Conservatives have laid blame on the Liberals for the program because Paul Martin's government awarded the contract to Sikorsky in 2004.

Liberals have pointed out there the government has made changes to the original contract which have contributed to the delays.

Last year, then-Defence minister Peter MacKay acknowledged the ongoing problems with the program and said he hoped "we will be back on track in the fall and taking regular delivery of Cyclone helicopters from Sikorsky." That never happened.

Sikorsky is the prime contractor for the maritime helicopter project, while General Dynamics Canada Ltd. Ottawa, and L-3 MAS, Mirabel Quebec are principal sub-contractors.

In its attempts to help Sikorsky along, DND officials reduced the criteria for an interim aircraft ­ a basic Cyclone - to receive a military airworthiness certification. But even with that, Sikorsky failed to meet its delivery timetable, according to a November 2010 briefing note written for MacKay. The Citizen obtained that note through the Access to Information law.