SeaKing Over FGS Deck
ATHABASKAN’s helicopter over the deck of FGS FRANKFURT AM MAIN(Jun 04)
Posted on 02/02/2006 3:24:59 PM PST by Cannoneer No. 4
HALIFAX -- A Sea King helicopter on the Halifax-based destroyer HMCS Athabaskan has crashed into the sea off the coast of Denmark.
A navy source tells Broadcast News that all five crew members on the chopper were rescued and apparently are in good health.
The Athabaskan left Halifax on January 11th -- on a six month NATO mission.
The Sea Kings have been a maintenance headache on numerous overseas missions, with frequent cancellations of sorties because of breakdowns.
A number of the aging helicopters have crashed over the years, killing several crew members.
The government is buying 28 Cyclones to replace the Sea Kings, but the first won't be delivered until 2008.
ping
Thanks goodness they were rescued.
Innuendo but no cause.
Could have been the Danes. Hans Island.
WOW -- thank God the crew is ok.
SeaKing Over FGS Deck
ATHABASKAN’s helicopter over the deck of FGS FRANKFURT AM MAIN(Jun 04)
Pingggggggg.
No one dead - that's the main thing. Helo's are replacable.
Red6
I'm glad to see that the crew was rescued and that Canada is going to retire those old birds. The Sea Kings were good helicopters in their day (until recently being used as VIP transports here in the US, including Marine One), but they are getting a bit long in the tooth and need to be replaced by something a little safer, more reliable, and cost effective concerning maintenance.
LINK: Sea King Song(QuickTime)
Good bye papa please pray for me My helicopter's crashing in the sea. I honestly don't mean to poke But my future is in doubt My co-pilot just fell out
Good bye papa it's hard to fly When my air frame's cracking in the sky For every hour in the air It takes some thirty to repair We fly these things on a dare
We had joy we had fun We had sea kings in the sun But the engines are on fire And the sea kings must retire
Good bye good chair my stingy one You could have bought the E-age warner ones Instead you blew five hundred mil Just to cancel out the bill Now I need an airsick pill.
We had joy we had fun We had sea kings in the sun We'll be lucky if we reach A crash landing on the beach.
Athabaskan is flagship.
The only promise that 'ti Jean kept out of his famous "Red Book" of campaign promises was to cancel that contract.
The penalties for breach of contract cost us half a billion dollars and we had no aircraft to show for it.
Since then a smaller number of Cormorant choppers were purchased but for search and rescue, not for the frigates and destroyers which continue to embark the Sea Kings. The Cormorant is the same machine but without some features which would have been needed for embarked operations.
Last year the government put out a contract with Sikorsky for choppers for the frigates and destroyers together with a contract to modify the chopper pads aboard the frigages/ This is the Cyclone mentioned in the article. This machine exists only in civilian configuration and there is no military configuration as yet.
The manufacturer of the EH101, which had bid on the new purchase, is again suing Canada because of the mammer in which it alleges that the tender process was manipulated in favour of Sikorsky.
I thought of that song a soon as I saw the title, but the version I saw was slightly different.
Sea kings are crap,
death traps.
Canada Ping!
Please FReepmail me to get on or off this Canada ping list.
2008 great lets hope the men live that long.
I was once told by a pilot at the air show that you can always tell whether equipment was moved by a Canadian Sea king by the tell tale oil slick on the equipment. Funny but not really.
Thank the good lord that the men are all A Okay.
This is an HH-53, right?
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