Originally Posted by
lucille
Have these Taipans been grounded anywhere else for the same reason? Or is this purely... Australia?
Following the loss of the Australian Army MRH90 off the Queensland coast, the New Zealand Defence Force also briefly grounded their NH90s. However that was lifted fairly soon, presumably after initial findings from the accident were passed on from Australia(?). I have not read of any other 'groundings' around the world.
The reason for the ongoing grounding of the fleet in Australia is intertwined with the prior planned retirement of the type. The Defence Minister made it clear a few months back that the timeframe for completion of the investigation of the accident would be such that continued grounding up to retirement of the fleet was inevitable. I sense a degree of politics mixed into the decisions too, once claims start being made (from elements of the opposition) about "dangerous" helicopters.
There are two other threads which cover this subject: In "Rotorheads" see "NH-90 Problems". In "Military Aviation" see "MRH-90 crash australia". Under the former link, Cyclic Hotline provided an item with summary of planned early retirements of various of the NH-90 fleet in post #279. Such early retirements include from Australia, Belgium, Sweden and Norway.