Alouettes 'on leave' after accident
Date: 28 October 2004
The following is a rough translation from an Afrikaans article that appeared in Beeld:
The Alouette helicopters from the airforce helicopter flying school at Bloemspruit have been grounded after one of the helicopters performed an emergency landing during a noght excercise this week.
According to Lt Ronald Maseko, spokeman of the airforce, neither the student, nor the instructor, were injured in the incident. Accrding to him, the helicopter was not damaged either. The training schools flight program for the Alouette has been cancelled while a technical team determines the cause of the incident. The program will continue if the team determines that the problem is specific to that particular helicopter. If the problem affects the rest of the Alouette fleet, then the rest of the helicopters will be grounded.
It is believed that the crew experienced a problem with the fuel flow, causing the engine to fail.
The Alouettes have been in service with the airforce for over 30 years and is it's primarly helicopter training platform. The new Italian Agusta helicopter will take over from the Alouette within the next few years. Two of these helicopters were delivered to the school two weeks ago. These will train the first group of pilots. Most of the Alouettes will be retired, but a core group of about ten will still be used for basic helicopter training.
