06 June 2008
The Ministry of Defence's failure to ensure its fleet of Chinook Mk3 helicopters is airworthy has been branded a 'gold standard cock-up' by a senior MP.
Public Accounts Committee chair Edward Leigh said the fact the helicopters were languishing in hangars almost seven years after delivery made their purchase 'one of the most incompetent procurements of all time'.
'This is a very unhappy state of affairs, made more acute by the knowledge of how much our soldiers in the hostile terrain of Afghanistan need helicopter support,' he said. 'By the time it is sorted out, the whole programme will have cost more than £422m – probably substantially more.'
Leigh was speaking as the National Audit Office published a report on the Chinook Mk3s on June 3. Acquired from Boeing in 2001, the helicopters could not be put into operation because software problems meant they could be flown only in a cloudless sky. The MoD began a 'Fix to Field' project to make them operational but abandoned this in March 2007 for a 'Reversion' project to convert the Mk3s to Mk2 standard.
The NAO criticised the MoD's slowness in pursuing the 'Fix to Field' project, which, had it been accelerated, would have made the 'Reversion' project unnecessary.
NAO head Tim Burr said the situation 're-emphasised the importance of timely decision-making and understanding requirements'.
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