Features
Military
Operations
No review of Sea Kings after unexpected landings
August 23, 2010 By The Canadian Press
August 23, 2010, Shearwater, N.S. - A military spokesman says the fleet of 27 Sea King helicopters is not undergoing any special review, despite pilots making unexpected landings in fields outside Halifax twice in just over a week.
"What we had were two minor incidents — not to diminish the importance of them because safety is very important,'' said 2nd Lt.
Tyrone Grande, a spokesman for 12 Wing Shearwater, home of the Sea Kings, on Thursday.
"But . . . these incidents are not expected to reoccur in the sense that it's not an overall problem with our fleet.''
The two landings — one on Wednesday and one earlier this month — were different, isolated incidents, he said.
None of the five-member crew onboard the Sea King was injured Wednesday afternoon when smoke near the sonar transmitter at the
rear of the aircraft forced the helicopter to land at Gaetz Head, just east of Lawrencetown.
Grande said technicians were sent to the scene shortly after the landing. Within three hours, the problem was fixed and the same crew
flew the aircraft back to Shearwater.
On Aug. 10, another Sea King on a training mission made an unexpected landing in a grassy area in Lower Sackville after
something went wrong with its hydraulic system. No one was injured in that incident, either.
Both aircraft have been given the go-ahead to fly, said Grande.
He said the pilots and crew in each incident made a decision to land, rather than being forced to land, in order to check out
potential problems. As a result, the military doesn't consider them to be emergency landings, but precautionary ones.
The Sea Kings are the Forces' oldest aircraft, brought into service in 1963. They are slated for replacement in 2012.
