The type of military helicopter that crashed during an exercise in Australia – with its four crew members still missing – has a history of serious safety issues.
The crash on Friday (July 28) happened during Exercise Talisman Sabre, which is jointly led by the United States and Australia, but also features armed forces from multiple other nations – including the UK. Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles has said that an MRH-90 Taipan helicopter was involved in the crash.
Earlier this year, Australia announced it was ditching the MRH-90 Taipan – which is built by French manufacturer Airbus for NATO – 13-years ahead of schedule. It came after a string of faults led to the Taipan fleet being grounded on multiple occasions, forcing the Australian Defence Force (ADF) to spend millions on hiring helicopters – and billions on a plan to replace the Taipan with US-built Black Hawk choppers.
In 2019, Australia’s entire fleet of 47 Taipans was grounded to fix a fault with the tail rotor blades which Defence officials admitted would have had “catastrophic consequences” if not sorted. Then, in 2020, 27 of the helicopters were grounded after some cabin sliding door rails were deemed unserviceable.
Later that year, defence officials admitted that the Taipan’s door was not wide enough to enable the safe exit of personnel from the helicopter while it was firing, reported The Guardian.
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And, in 2021, the Australian Defence Force revealed it was hiring private helicopters at cost of $37m because of the low availability of the Taipans. Later that year, the Defence minister at the time, Peter Dutton, announced plans to buy 40 Black Hawks from the US and to bring forward Taipans’ retirement.
This was confirmed in January this year when the Australian Defence Force announced it intended to stop all Taipan flying operations by December 2024 – 13 years earlier planned.
Defence Minister, Richard Marles said this was “because really, over the course of the last decade, we’ve struggled in terms of getting the hours out of the Taipans that we would want, both with maintenance and having spare parts available”.
Australian army chief, Lt Gen Simon Stuart, had said that the cost of operating a Taipan was “in the order of $48,000 an hour”.
Nonetheless, Government sources had played down suggestions of compensation being paid for retiring the helicopters early.
However, manufacturer Airbus said it would “work with the Australian government and our employees to provide assistance for the impacted workers to remain within the country’s aerospace industry”.
Airbus said at the time that it was “fully committed to providing our full support for the MRH90 fleet in Australia for as long as it remains in service”. The French firm and praised aircrews and support staff for ensuring “the fleet has operated safely and completed important missions”.