Canadaina Coastguard Helicopter system on the rocks?
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Canadaina Coastguard Helicopter system on the rocks?
Sunday September 3 5:23 PM ET
Coast guard reviews troubled chopper fleet after study cites poor management
HALIFAX (CP) - The Canadian Coast Guard plans to review the operations of its troubled helicopter fleet after an internal study cited poor management and high costs. "Helicopter services have not been managed effectively," says a July 14 department report, obtained under the Access to Information Act.
The report says a national system isn't in place to "support long-term operational and capital planning and daily operations and monitoring." The draft document was written two months after one of the coast guard's 28 helicopters crashed near Cabot Island, Nfld., killing the pilot.
The Bell 212 chopper hit the water May 10 as the pilot was returning from a trip to supply fresh water to the Cabot Island lighthouse.
The Transportation Safety Board moved the wreckage to its Dartmouth, N.S., facility to investigate the accident's cause.
The fatal crash came only five days after a coast guard helicopter based in Prince Rupert, B.C., had to be grounded for three weeks because of serious maintenance problems.
The internal report warns that the coast guard "has lost much of (its) helicopter maintenance expertise." The agency's only three engineers with maintenance experience left in the early 1990s because of early retirements, though one has since been replaced.
The coast guard contracts out maintenance to Transport Canada, which performs most of the work in the Ottawa area. But the report notes that that the agency has lost much of its ability to effectively monitor the work performed.
The internal investigation also raises questions about the cost of operating the Prince Rupert helicopter, a heavy-lift Sikorsky S-61N that is unique in the fleet and "the most expensive to operate and maintain."
The 27-year-old helicopter needs at least $1.5 million in repairs to replace its main rotary blades and to overhaul the main transmission and rotor head.
A spokesman says the work has been approved but that the coast guard still plans to review whether it needs the one-of-a-kind model, a cousin to the military's geriatric Sea King helicopters.
"In any kind of replacement program, we'd probably try to keep to one or two types," Peter Ballard said in an interview from Ottawa.
The coast guard currently uses three other standard types of choppers to help keep down maintenance and operating expenses.
The report found that the least-used helicopters are two BO-105s, based in Saint John, N.B., and Yarmouth, N.S.
The average yearly use in the fleet is about 400 hours, but the chopper in Saint John was in the air only 242 hours - and the Yarmouth aircraft only 281 hours - in 1998-99.
The coast guard announced in March it planned to transfer the Saint John chopper to Shearwater, N.S.
The government has also indicated it will remove the Yarmouth chopper when the military's new Cormorant search-and-rescue helicopters become operational at Greenwood, N.S., likely by 2003.
Federal officials tried earlier in the 1990s to withdraw the under-used Yarmouth helicopter but then-fisheries minister Brian Tobin acceded to the demands of locals and ordered it retained.
To pay for the unneeded service, officials had to temporarily lay up a fisheries patrol cutter, the Louisbourg, based in Gaspe, Que.
Ballard said the coast guard will also re-examine whether it should be contracting out more or all of its helicopter requirements to the private sector. That option was rejected in 1993 as not cost-effective but the internal review urges a revival of the idea.
"It may be we live with less and charter more," Ballard said, noting that the agency will not be replacing the helicopter lost on May 10.
"If it makes more sense, we'll do it that way." © The Canadian Press, 2000
Coast guard reviews troubled chopper fleet after study cites poor management
HALIFAX (CP) - The Canadian Coast Guard plans to review the operations of its troubled helicopter fleet after an internal study cited poor management and high costs. "Helicopter services have not been managed effectively," says a July 14 department report, obtained under the Access to Information Act.
The report says a national system isn't in place to "support long-term operational and capital planning and daily operations and monitoring." The draft document was written two months after one of the coast guard's 28 helicopters crashed near Cabot Island, Nfld., killing the pilot.
The Bell 212 chopper hit the water May 10 as the pilot was returning from a trip to supply fresh water to the Cabot Island lighthouse.
The Transportation Safety Board moved the wreckage to its Dartmouth, N.S., facility to investigate the accident's cause.
The fatal crash came only five days after a coast guard helicopter based in Prince Rupert, B.C., had to be grounded for three weeks because of serious maintenance problems.
The internal report warns that the coast guard "has lost much of (its) helicopter maintenance expertise." The agency's only three engineers with maintenance experience left in the early 1990s because of early retirements, though one has since been replaced.
The coast guard contracts out maintenance to Transport Canada, which performs most of the work in the Ottawa area. But the report notes that that the agency has lost much of its ability to effectively monitor the work performed.
The internal investigation also raises questions about the cost of operating the Prince Rupert helicopter, a heavy-lift Sikorsky S-61N that is unique in the fleet and "the most expensive to operate and maintain."
The 27-year-old helicopter needs at least $1.5 million in repairs to replace its main rotary blades and to overhaul the main transmission and rotor head.
A spokesman says the work has been approved but that the coast guard still plans to review whether it needs the one-of-a-kind model, a cousin to the military's geriatric Sea King helicopters.
"In any kind of replacement program, we'd probably try to keep to one or two types," Peter Ballard said in an interview from Ottawa.
The coast guard currently uses three other standard types of choppers to help keep down maintenance and operating expenses.
The report found that the least-used helicopters are two BO-105s, based in Saint John, N.B., and Yarmouth, N.S.
The average yearly use in the fleet is about 400 hours, but the chopper in Saint John was in the air only 242 hours - and the Yarmouth aircraft only 281 hours - in 1998-99.
The coast guard announced in March it planned to transfer the Saint John chopper to Shearwater, N.S.
The government has also indicated it will remove the Yarmouth chopper when the military's new Cormorant search-and-rescue helicopters become operational at Greenwood, N.S., likely by 2003.
Federal officials tried earlier in the 1990s to withdraw the under-used Yarmouth helicopter but then-fisheries minister Brian Tobin acceded to the demands of locals and ordered it retained.
To pay for the unneeded service, officials had to temporarily lay up a fisheries patrol cutter, the Louisbourg, based in Gaspe, Que.
Ballard said the coast guard will also re-examine whether it should be contracting out more or all of its helicopter requirements to the private sector. That option was rejected in 1993 as not cost-effective but the internal review urges a revival of the idea.
"It may be we live with less and charter more," Ballard said, noting that the agency will not be replacing the helicopter lost on May 10.
"If it makes more sense, we'll do it that way." © The Canadian Press, 2000
