Wiltshire Air Ambulance more woes.
Heli-charter, the AOC holder and maintenance provider for Wiltshire Air Ambulance have ceased trading as of today.
This of course means that the AOC for Wiltshire Air Ambulance has disappeared and that they are now no longer able to operate until that's resolved. On top of that there has recently been ANOTHER very similar tail rotor incident on their Bell 429, G-WLTS. An additional issue now of course is that there are no engineers available to look into it!
Bell seem to be quite comfortable in denying that there's a problem with the 429's TR and the AAIB were not (but now, given a second occurence, might be) interested in looking into it.
The shortcomings at Heli-Charter have been visible for all to see over the latter part of last year - even from the sidelines it's clear that the executive management at WAA have been caught napping. A trawl through these pages reveals a less than favourable opinion of the WAA management and I guess the mess they're now in will serve to galvanise it.
Can't help but feel sorry for all those living through it.
Blyyddyn Newydd Dda!