Sea King claims refuted

4 June 2007

On Friday May 18, 2007, Defence Writer Ian McPhedran claimed in an article, published in The Daily Telegraph, that Defence attempted to cover up the temporary suspension of flying operations of the Navy's Sea King helicopters imposed on May 2, 2007 and only released a statement following enquiries from The Daily Telegraph. The Fleet Commander responded in writing to the Editor of The Daily Telegraph with the following:

Dear Sir,

I would like to redress some inaccuracies in Ian McPhedran's article 'An embarrassed navy grounds its Sea Kings' (Daily Telegraph, 18 May 2007).

The contention that Defence has attempted to cover up this incident is unsubstantiated and simply untrue. The incident was fully reported within the Defence chain of command in early May and the Australian Defence Force's independent technical airworthiness organisation has been involved in the ongoing deliberations about returning the aircraft back to operations. I reject the implication that there has been a cover up simply because a press release was not issued at the time.

Mr McPhedran states that the incident was an 'emergency'. This is incorrect. The incident was discovered in a routine pre-flight inspection in a non flight safety critical system.

While I am disappointed that there has been a maintenance error, I am certainly not embarrassed that a diligent young sailor detected the error, nor that the Squadron Commanding Officer took swift precautionary action and suspended flying. These are positive indicators of cultural change as a result of the Maintenance Reinvigoration Program implemented in 2005. This program is aimed at fundamentally improving naval aviation maintenance.

The decision to resume flying will be one that I make once the standard airworthiness processes that we have in place reach their conclusion. I take my aviation regulatory responsibilities very seriously and I will not make that decision until I have independent airworthiness advice from Defence's technical airworthiness authority that it is appropriate to resume flying. The safety of our personnel in all aspects of naval operations is paramount.

There are hundreds of hardworking, diligent and committed aviation maintenance sailors and officers in the Navy who deserve better than this type of reporting.

RADM Davyd Thomas

Commander Australian Fleet

18 May 07