Nearly all of the Royal Canadian Air Force’s (RCAF) Maritime fleet of Sikorsky-manufactured CH-148 Cyclone helicopters need to be repaired after cracks were discovered in the tails of the aircraft.
According to a CBC News report, the cracks were first found in one of the helicopters on Nov. 26 during a maintenance check. Further investigation found cracks in 19 of the RCAFD”™s 23 CH-148 helicopters, which are used in operations off Nova Scotia and British Columbia.
The RCAF has a history of problems with the CH-148 Cyclone, which took more than a decade to enter service amid ballooning costs. In April 2020, six RCAF crew members on a CH-148 died when their aircraft plunged into the Ionian Sea off Greece during a European mission.
Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
