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Crashed Sea King recovered and raised onto barge
CTV.ca News Staff
Updated: Fri. Feb. 3 2006 4:26 PM ET
A Sea King helicopter that crashed into the ocean off Denmark Thursday has been recovered and raised onto a barge.
Cdr. Chris Dickinson said the downed aircraft was hoisted from about 16 metres of water late Friday afternoon.
The Sea King is expected to be ferried to the Danish port of Arhus, where it will be met by a Canadian flight safety investigation team which is en route to Denmark and due to arrive sometime this weekend.
The Sea King went down 50 kilometres off the east coast of Denmark after trying to land on HMCS Athabaskan.
The five crew members were recovered safely before the chopper sank, and they were taken to the Athabaskan, which serves as the base to the helicopter and its crew.
The crew was treated for "minor injuries" but are otherwise fine, according to officials in Halifax.
Over the weekend, military officials will assess what happened to cause the helicopter to crash.
The commander of the Sea King squadron, Col. Al Blair, will consult with personnel at the Shearwater air base near Halifax whether to ground the entire fleet of aging Sea Kings.
For now, the air force is not flying any of the choppers, and training exercises will be delayed likely until next week while the investigation is underway.
"These three days are giving us a chance to take the information we have and assess where we're going to go in the future," a spokesperson from Shearwater told CTV.ca
"We've got to look at all options. There are options of replacing aircraft for the ship, or replacing the crew on the ship; and also whether we are going to be flying, and if so, when?"
The incident occurred during a night operation while the crew practiced landings at the rear of the Athabaskan. The navy says the Sea King tried initially to land on the warship but flew off to try again. It was making a second pass when it suddenly went into the water.
Speaking at a news conference Thursday, Blair said the "aircraft was making a standard night approach to the ship when it contacted the water and rolled inverted."
"It was quite dark when the incident happened," Cmdr. Chris Dickerson told CTV Newsnet, speaking from the Athabaskan.
The Athabaskan has a crew of about 300 military personnel, and is the flagship for a NATO squadron of five destroyers and frigates from five different nations.
The decades-old Sea King fleet has been fraught with problems for years.
The single-rotor helicopters were first purchased in 1963, and in 2004, 28 were still in use. They often experience flameouts, engine stalls, generator failures, and have been described as "flying coffins" by members of the military.
In 1993, Jean Chretien's newly-elected government cancelled a Tory plan that would have replaced the Sea Kings by 2000.
The Liberal government said the plan was too expensive, but pulling out of the deal cost Canada $500 million in cancellation fees.
Last year the government contracted to purchase 28 Cyclones to replace the Sea Kings, but the first aircraft won't be delivered until late 2008.
The last Sea King is expected to retire in 2011.
With files from Canadian Press
