From today's Scottish Daily Mail:
Scots Coastguards have warned that lives are being put at risk by serious faults in their new £8million rescue helicopters.
The Sikorsky S92s have suffered a series of technical glitches since their introduction in July last year.
Last week Coastguards were even forced to ground the helicopter and use its 47-year-old predecessor to carry out a rescue.
The problems mainly lie with the S92's satellite communications system, which a senior source has described as 'unusable'.
Other technical issues, such as the helicopter's 'auto-hover' system used during winching, have raised concerns about its suitability for search-and-rescue duties. The new S92s were introduced after helicopter firm CHC Scotia was awarded a £100 million, five-year contract by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) for search and rescue operations.
The U.S. built helicopters replace the old Sikorsky S61s used by the previous contractor, Bristow. The S61 was introduced in 1961. Two S92s are now based at Stornoway in the Outer Hebrides and two more are set to be deployed at Sumburgh in the Shetlands soon.
The helicopters from these two Coastguard stations are used in rescue missions all over Scotland.
However, crews were concerned that the S92s did not have short-wave radio sets, which are often used to co-ordinate rescues involving the RAF and Royal Navy.
Instead, the Coastguards have to rely on a satellite phone, which sometimes provides a poor signal.
Crews have complained that emergency messages are often delayed by problems dialling up the air rescue co-ordination centre at RAF Kinloss in Moray.
Matters reached a head on Hogmanay, when the Stornoway team were informed that a crewman aboard an Inverness-registered trawler The Adventurer was suffering severe chest pains.
But the S92 had problems contacting RAF Kinloss and controllers scrambled an ageing S61 from Sumburgh - a machine which had been replaced by the S92s - to carry out the rescue mission 95 miles out to sea.
A senior Coastguard source said last night: 'It was an embarrassing fiasco. They had to get out the old workhorse which has been flying since the 1960s to do the job properly.
'Yet they (the MCA) refuse to listen when told the satellite system is often unuseable.'
Western Isles councillor Donald Macsween said: 'I know that many of the crews are concerned and there has been talk of some quitting because no one is listening to them. It's not good enough in a vital public serivce.'
An MCA spokesman admitted there had been glitches during the Hogmanay operation but claimed problems with the S92's communications system were being 'urgently addressed'.
He added: 'Crews are still getting to grips with the aircraft and this was a scenario that had not previously been encountered or practised.'