Bond ground all UK EC135s
 

Statement received this morning from Bond Air Services.
Further statement at 1140
Eurocopter tell me that the wording is important. This is not a grounding, they say.

airsound

With the latest news....a question about "Fuel Gauge Calibration Checks" arises.

Are they a part of routine maintenance procedures and done at specific intervals or just when a problem is reported by the Pilot?

Are the Fuel Cells ever opened and the interiors inspected during major Inspections?

I think you'll find that Bond grounded its 135s some time ago, following concerns with mis-reading fuel gauges, as I tried to indicate here

Have any other EC135 operations suspended services?

No, they continued flying up until an incident yesterday evening.

Bond ground all UK EC135s
 

BBC have just announced that Bond have found a fault and grounded all their EC135 helicopters.

AeromysAre you sure they were all flying until yesterday evening?!

Are you saying Bond have not operated any 135s' since the Glasgow crash ? On what date are you saying Bond grounded their 135 fleet ?

Flying/ Not Flying
 

Definitely they were still flying a Police EC135 in Glasgow last night.

From whats on here, they werent pulled till late last night.

Bond ground all UK EC135s
 

According to the Beeb anyway:

BBC News - Glasgow crash helicopters grounded by Bond Air Services

Sky news seems to think that Bond operate all police and air ambulance EC135s. As I understand it NPAS have not grounded their EC135s serviced by ECUK. Unless anyone knows to the contrary?

BBC News are reporting that NPAS have issued an instruction to operate with increased minimum fuel level.

Differing levels of risk averseness.

Did you say all UK 135's?

Just in case anybody is interested in facts;
NPAS instruction as at 23:04, 11 Dec is to operate with an increased MLA of 100Kgs in the Main Tank until further notice.

So why haven't Bond said the same?

Bond ground all their UK EC135s
 

All of Bond's EC135s, according to the BBC report. (No press release on Bond's website yet.)

"Bond Air Services suspended flights on all 22 of its EC 135s after a fault was found on the North West Air Ambulance. ... Eurocopter said the decision taken by Bond did not apply to the rest of the Eurocopter fleet in the UK - a total of 57 aircraft."

I could have worded it better perhaps but yes, according to the Beeb, Bond have grounded all their EC135s

Is this related to the Glasgow accident, in so far that there might have been increased sensitivities/checks after this event, or just a co-incident in terms of timing? Or we don't know yet...?

According to BBC news bond have said the grounding is not related to the Glasgow crash.

If true, that may prove an important claim.

Just been announced the EC135 is to resume service.

BBC News are reporting that "Emergency helicopters run by Bond Air Services back in air after being grounded"

BBC News - Emergency helicopters run by Bond Air Services back in air after being grounded

Just the fine print;

So, at what point do you think NPAS should lift their restriction?

From Bond:
From which, as they had previously said there was no linkage between the Glasgow incident and this suspension of all their EC135s I presume the former is not considered fuel quantity related?

aeromys
I'm saying that at least one of Bond's EC135s was grounded before or about 4th December because of concerns over misreading fuel gauges. This was the focus of the AAIB from an early stage in the investigation - hence my first post.

SS - I didn't call you a nob; I said your arrogance made you sound like a nob. You dismissed my contribution on the basis I was misinformed, however, I can assure you I am very well informed, hence my comment about not posting speculatively.

Just to make it clear;

Ian Whitehouse NPAS COO - "If such a notice is put in place (by the CAA etc) then we would immediately and carefully consider it"

...... Nollocks, you would DO it.

Why haven't NPAS taken the same precaution with their EC135 fleet?? Because they haven't got their own in- house maintenance or engineering management team.

nodrama, I can only agree. You are legally obliged to comply...or stop flying.
If you've been around UK aviation long enough then you would know that... Surely NPAS crews want their airframes checked in the same way the Bond ones have been as a reassurance measure if nothing else. They say "safety is our number one priority", well, demonstrate the same.
If the ambulances are being checked as ok, let's check the police cars too....

nodrama,
"Because they haven't got their own........engineering management team."

Are you sure??

Blind Pugh - are you aware they may have had their a/c checked by one of the biggest maintenance organisations in Europe?

Radio 4 this evening reported that the fault related to fuel gauges.

SGC

TC, Fantastic, then why not say so in your press release? Have they by the way?

You are now saying they grounded at least one, a bit different to your earlier implication they grounded all their135s'. Checking a fuel indication defect on one of their135s' is not grounding the fleet.

It seems that the latest is that 2 of 3 Wales Air Ambulance are back in service leaving one plus the South & East Wales Police Air Support Unit still grounded until inspections have been completed.

aeromys
Not quite sure where you're going with this. What I'm saying is that Bond quickly grounded at least one of its wet lease 135s quickly after the Glasgow incident because of a known problem with said 135's fuel gauge; that's the significant bit. I also said that I believed a big factor in the demise of G-SPAO was fuel starvation.

TTB - That sounds like a normal "Snag" to me.

Cabby,
"Eurocopter can't be contacted"

At anything after 1701 on a Friday evening that's "Ops normal". Hardly earth shattering news!

So, Bond have grounded all their 135's until they have all been individually checked and cleared to fly again by Bond Maintanence. I understand that and appreciate that, due to recent events.

NPAS have imposed an additional limitation of 100kg min in the main fuel tank UFN. When is this limit going to be lifted again as each aircraft is very unlikely to be individually checked and cleared by ECUK Maintanence as they have already publicly stated that it was not them that have issued the checks.

Seems a bit of a knee jerk reaction by someone in NPAS who should know better without thinking yet again just because one aircraft had a fault. This limit imposed is affecting real time operational capabilities, and hindering the service that should be being provided. NPAS, if you are actually that concerned then ground the aircraft and pay to have them individually checked, otherwise stop making half hearted attempts to make it look like you know what you are doing is best.

If ECUK refuse to carry out the checks as (like most of us) they do not see a fleet wide problem, what is Plan B? Will You just lift the limitation again next week once Bond have had all their checks completed and returned all the other 21 aircraft back flying again. Would that be a duty of care to your own NPAS pilots by doing nothing except making the job more difficult in the mean time!

Is this going to happen for every fault over the next few months until the findings of Glasgow are published?

:ugh:

:\

more than just one EC135 with faulty fuel gauges. Air ambo in Dorset has one too.