Legal action may be launched against US suppliers of Australia’s troubled Super Seasprite helicopter now grounded with technical problems, the government says.
The Australian navy bought 11 of the helicopters from US defence contractor Kaman Aerospace for $1 billion in 1997, but the Seasprites have been plagued by technical problems and has never been fully operational.
Defence Minister Brendan Nelson said on Monday he had banned the Seasprites from flying because of the latest difficulties, software and technical problems.
“I have asked the Department of Defence to consider all options including, if appropriate, legal action against the contractors who have not fulfilled their obligations to Australia and to Australian taxpayers,” Nelson said.
“We’ve been let down seriously by a number of contractors.
“We have had delays and essentially as far as I am concerned the software failures we faced in late March have been the straw that’s broken the camel’s back.”
A defence review, due to report by the end of June, may recommend the choppers be replaced at a cost of at least another $1 billion.
A key defence lobby group, the Australian Defence Association, earlier urged the government to sue the US contractors over the failed Seasprite program.
“Unless you start trying to punish some of these defence contractors for not delivering the capability that they were contracted to deliver, you’re not really going to solve the problem in the long run,” ADA executive director Neil James said.
Source: http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/488120/714360
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Also announced today was the complete grounding of the fleet for an indefinate time period. The sentiment in the public about these helos shows that the government has not thought hard about buying right but only buying American for reasons of logistical support whilest on deployments with American forces.
Interestingly enough, the other countries who also opperate these machines are not having any problems at all with them and New Zealand have stood firm in their choice and even announced today that their fleet of New Build SH-2G(NZ)’s are to remain in service.
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So what do you think the governments chances are for sueing them? I think it’s comical mainly because Kaman walked off the project three years into the disaster and since then the Government and the navy have been lumped with trying to get these things working.
It’s like I said some time ago, the defence forces are trying to squeeze too much technology into existing equipment. The Collins class was a fantastic machine but they decided to rip out the standard heart of the machine and add new and improved fire controls, this is what killed the program! Same goes here with the SH-2G’s they ripped out all the systems and crammed new and improved things in to save on man power which is dwingling. You either take what is available or you go without!!!
Personally I’d sue the contractors, get the money back, return the helos and use the money in other areas much more needed now e.g. MRH-90’s. The whole reason we bought the SH-2G’s ahs fallen in to history, it’s now proven that we can operate the S-70B-2’s off the ANZAC’s (which we have been doing) and the OPV deal fell almost 10 years ago so why do we need them?
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May 15, 2006 at 8:36 am