CHC : Norway Investigation Update Regarding Flight Operations

Our team at CHC has received the latest Safety and Operational Directive from the Norwegian CAA issued on 1 June 2016, which confirms that:

'As a result of the preliminary report from AIBN 1 June 2016 and contact between the UK Civil Aviation Authority and Norwegian Civil Aviation Authority on 1 June 2016, it was decided that Norwegian Civil Aviation Authority will extend the scope of their Airbus Helicopters EC225LP and AS332L2 Safety Directives to all operations, including SAR operations.'

The UK CAA issued a similar Directive on 2 June 2016 confirming that they are adopting the same stance. Subsequent to this, EASA has issued an Emergency Airworthiness Directive which confirms that:

'…..a second preliminary report from the investigation board indicated metallurgical findings of fatigue and surface degradation in the outer race of a second stage planet gear of the MGB epi-cyclic module. At this time, it cannot be determined if this is a contributing causal factor or subsequent failure from another initiating factor.

Pending further investigation to determine the root cause(s) of the reported damage, and development of mitigating measures by Airbus Helicopters, EASA has decided, as an additional precautionary measure, to temporarily ground the fleet.'

This temporary grounding is effective immediately but does permit single ferry flights without passengers to recover aircraft to a suitable maintenance location.

CHC has suspended all H225 operations (including those committed to SAR and Medevac) until further feedback is received from EASA. We are in compliance with the latest Regulatory requirements of Norway and the UK and our global positon mirrors the stance taken by the regulators.

We will continue to review our position on a regular basis based on further factual updates from the investigation process as well as direction received from the Regulatory Authorities. Until then, our focus remains on safely serving our customers.