Flight into uncertainty

Flight into uncertainty

The army has more than 200 helicopters in its fleet but fewer than half of them are airworthy 

Three horrific helicopter crashes in Kaeng Krachan National Park last month not only saddened the nation but have raised questions about the army's procurement policy and maintenance standards.

On July 16, a Huey went down in rugged mountain terrain in Kaeng Krachan National Park. Five soldiers, who were on a mission to support a campaign against forest encroachment, were killed in the crash.
The other two choppers _ a UH-60 Black Hawk and a Bell 212 _ crashed in ensuing missions to airlift the bodies of the victims.
Seventeen people were killed and one injured in the three incidents. Sgt Pattanaporn Tonjan, a flight mechanic on the Bell 212, is the sole survivor of the three aviation tragedies.
Army chief Gen Prayuth Chan-ocha quickly shot down speculation that the three choppers went down because they were poorly maintained.
The first two went down because of bad weather, he said. The Bell 212 is suspected to have gone down due to a mechanical malfunction of the tail rotor.
However, he did admit that the army's helicopter fleet is old and the army does not have enough money to keep them in shape.
"We have travelled on these old helicopters since we were young. They have only been repaired when needed. Our country does not have a big [military] budget," he said.
The armed forces have lost more than 20 aircraft in accidents over the past 10 years, including three F-16s.

The Army Aviation Centre, based in Lop Buri, takes care of 240 choppers of different makes but only about 90-100 are airworthy.
The UH-1H, or Huey, is the oldest in the fleet, more than 30 years old. About 130 of them were procured under a US military aid programme. At present, only 30 of them are functional.
Most of the Hueys were sent here after the Vietnam War, although a batch of 30 Hueys arrived in 2004 under the Excess Defence Article programme.
Items that are declared excess by the US military can be offered to foreign governments or international organisations in support of US national security and foreign policy objectives.
The 30 Hueys were decommissioned from the US army but refurbished at a cost of US$1 million each. Twenty of them remain in usable condition.
The army has 52 Bell 212 helicopters, but only 20 can fly. The army tried to get some of the Bell 212s fixed in 2006. It contracted the Thai Aviation Industry (the now-defunct TAI) to repair 16 of them for 1 billion baht. The choppers have remained grounded since repairs.
In 2008, when Gen Anupong Paochinda was army commander, the army set a budget of 990 million baht to fix 15 Bell 212s. That maintenance budget, however, was shifted to buying three Russian-made Mi-17V5 at the cost of 316 million baht each. The Bells thus remained unfixed.