I artikkelen under avdekkes australias store problemer med NH90 over lang tid. Australia går for Black Hawk som erstatning. Sverige har fulgt opp med Black Hawk og danskene hoppet av NSHP (Nordic Standard Helicopter Project) veldig tidlig. Norge burde hoppet av for mange år siden, slik det gjentatte ganger har fremkommet her på bloggen. 50 000 Aus$ er lik kr 350 000,-. (Red.)
Home/Air/Australia Grounds MRH-90 Taipan Helicopter Fleet After Sea CrashIRASIA PACIFIC
Australia Grounds MRH-90 Taipan Helicopter Fleet After Sea Crash
JOE SABALLAMARCH 24, 2023
1 MINUTE READ
Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Reddit Share via Email Print
The Australian
Defence Force has halted operations of its entire MRH-90 Taipan helicopter
fleet after one crashed near a New South Wales beach.
According to
deputy prime minister Richard Marles, 10 soldiers were on board the
multi-role Airbus chopper when it was forced to make an emergency landing in
the water just after 9 pm on Wednesday.
Army, navy,
and special forces personnel were reportedly conducting a late-night
counter-terrorism training exercise in a maritime environment.
Marles
revealed that the helicopter suddenly lost power, forcing the pilot to ditch
the aircraft upright in Jervis Bay.
“We should all
be thankful for the professionalism of the men and women of our defense forces.
In this instance, they responded to a very terrifying situation, and in the
midst of a crisis managed to act in a way which has kept everyone alive,” the
deputy minister said in a statement.
Two of the
crew sustained minor injuries in the crash.
Eyewitness Account
Michael
Ungerboeck,
who was fishing in a boat on Wednesday, said he saw two
helicopters in the air near Iluka Beach — one was “completely blacked out,”
while the other had its navigation lights on.
He noticed
that the chopper with the navigation lights was hovering about 20 meters (65
feet) above the water before it appeared to malfunction.
“We started to
hear the rotor blades really wind down and you could see the navigation lights
getting pretty damn close [to the water], then all of a sudden it powered up
again and it went up,” he told the Australian
Broadcasting Corporation.
‘A Project of Concern’
Australia has
a fleet of 47 MRH-90 Taipan helicopters that have been experiencing
problems for some time.
The aircraft
has been listed as a “project of concern” by the Australian National Audit
Office.
According to Breaking Defense,
the Taipan costs 50,000 Australian dollars ($33,442) an hour to operate,
similar to the much more technologically advanced F-35A Joint Strike Fighter.
Canberra
already has a project to
replace the MRH-90 with 40 UH-60M Black Hawk helicopters from the US.
Ingen kommentarer:
Legg inn en kommentar
Merk: Bare medlemmer av denne bloggen kan legge inn en kommentar.