Rotorhub April/May . Editor piece on SAR Contract award.
In a move that will be watched closely by other government
agencies around the world, the UK has moved ahead with plans
to privatise SAR services across the country.As we report this issue in the news pages, the UK Department forTransport (DfT) announced the award of the £1.6 billion ($2.4 billion) contract to Bristow Group, bringing an end to military involvement in the SAR arena. Bristow will now provide a fleet of new S-92s and AW189s to operate from ten bases across the country from 2015 to 2026.
The knee-jerk reaction from some sections of the wider UK media was as predictable as it was amusing – painting the move as a US corporate giant doing Prince William, a flight lieutenant who commands a SAR crew at RAF Valley in Anglesey, North Wales, out of a job (one television
correspondent helpfully informed us that ‘there are two types of Sea King helicopter: one is yellow and one is red/grey’).
I am certainly not a fan of privatisation for its own sake, especially when it comes to critical national infrastructure, but the announcement should be regarded as a positive development for the UK as it looks to life beyond the Sea King from 2016. While the smaller internal capacity of the AW189 in particular has been seized on by some, the capabilities of the new aircraft, including increased speed and modern avionics/flight control systems, will make life a lot easier for pilots on more demanding SAR missions.
Certainly, the question of whether the ‘ethos’ surrounding the SAR mission will change once civilian crews take over from the military is an emotive but valid one. However, there is no doubting Bristow’s commitment or expertise in the SAR arena, any more than there would have been if Bond or CHC had secured the contract.
For a feature published in this issue, Matthew Smith spoke to many of the operators providing SAR services for government and oil and gas customers (before Bristow’s latest success was announced), and their dedication to the SAR mission is clear. Bristow itself, which had a long British heritage before being acquired by Offshore Logistics in 1996, has been providing SAR services in the UK since 1971. This includes more than 15,000 missions, during which more than 7,000 people were rescued by company-operated helicopters.
With the AW189 slated to be built at AgustaWestland’s UK facility in Yeovil, Somerset, the contract will help shore up the helicopter manufacturing capability resident in the UK. The DfT has also done well in putting the previous botched privatisation attempt behind it in awarding the contract.
For those who weren’t watching, the earlier SAR-H programme was abandoned after allegations that a former member of the joint Ministry of Defence/DfT integrated project team had assisted the Soteria consortium in its bid preparation by providing access to commercially sensitive information.
Losing the preferred bidder status effectively amounted to a £6 billion penalty for Soteria team members CHC, Thales and the Royal Bank of Scotland.
The delay caused by the SAR-H drama did not remove the simple fact that the Sea Kings will reach the end of their working lives in 2016. Handing the keys over to Bristow will allow the military, which is itself increasingly being squeezed by reductions in staff and cuts to equipmentprogrammes, to focus its attention on frontline duties.