Despite two ceremonial welcomes and a bunch of business trips to the manufacturer’s base, our first medical helicopter turned out to have a lot of technical problems, quite serious ones at that. bTV reported this evening.
The helicopter is without a black box, with door problems, bad seals, non-working heating, etc., it is clear from a letter shown on air from the company “Bulgaria Heli Med Service” to the ministers of health and transport. The letter describes the results of a re-inspection of the helicopter at the production base in Italy after its technical acceptance. It was carried out immediately before the arrival of the helicopter in Bulgaria.
Our experts’ check found seven issues:
– CVFDR, a system popularly known as a black box, is not installed and certified;
– the left passenger door has a problem with the opening and closing mechanism;
– the air conditioning system in the office does not work in “heating” mode;
– the seals of the pilot doors are not installed properly – there are peelings;
– rings for securing the luggage are not installed in the luggage compartment;
– there are defects in the paint coating.
The Minister of Transport Georgi Gvozdeikov scandalously neglected these problems when the authors of the TV investigation found him at a public event. “This is not a report, this is a handover protocol, in which some deficiencies were identified, which, of course, have been corrected at the moment,” he claims.
“The certification and airworthiness procedures will start after he becomes Bulgarian. So here the delay is because the helicopter is late. Otherwise, the helicopter is fully technically sound and equipped,” explains Dimcho Dobrev, executive director of “Bulgaria Heli Med Service” EAD. According to him, the black box was an option and nothing prevented the helicopter from flying without it.
Experts told the television that, on the contrary, there is not a single unimportant remark in the protocol. “By no means are these small things, by no means. We have an aircraft here. If this door does not lock, does not close and we fly at 300 km per hour – is it not serious?” asked Colonel Valentin Kirov, associate professor at the Higher Air Force School. “Personally, I would not consider it normal to operate a helicopter that will fly and must be ready for flights around the clock, in any metrological conditions, in any time intervals – to fly without a CVFDR. I personally do not accept this as normal, but it all depends on what kind of contract is signed,” Prof. Kirov points out.
Earlier today, Sega also questioned the Ministry of Transport about the irregularities found in the helicopter. From there, however, they did not respond either to bTV or to “Sega”. The Ministry of Health, on the other hand, transfers the questions to their colleagues with the argument that the registration and licensing of the helicopter is within the competences of the Transport Department.
The revelations come at an extremely inconvenient moment – the medical helicopter is ranked among the great achievements of the nine months of the “Denkov” office. The problems are surprising against the background of frequent visits to the base of the manufacturer – the Italian company Leonardo Sp A and even more frequent messages from the Ministry of Transport, which followed every step of the historic production.
This is not the first disappointment with the helicopter that started emergency air assistance in our country. Shortly after his arrival, it became clear that he would not be able to be used for mountain rescue.
Despite the problems, the operator company assures that we will see the helicopter flying next week. Dobrev claims that the Italians have fixed all the problems except one – the black box. Although it was supposedly not that urgent, it was still ordered, but its software will be licensed until the end of March.
Tomorrow morning bTV will broadcast their full investigation into the case.
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2024-03-07 17:32:01
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