Australia — CH-47D Chinook Helicopters resume flying operations

Army has lift­ed the pre­cau­tion­ary sus­pen­sion of fly­ing oper­a­tions for the CH-47D Chi­nook heli­copter.

The sus­pen­sion was put in place on 30 Sep­tem­ber fol­low­ing the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of pos­si­ble issues relat­ing to the oper­a­tion of the aircraft’s Advanced Flight Con­trol Sys­tem (AFCS) in cer­tain flight conditions.Australian Depart­ment of Defence 

Chief of Army Lieu­tenant Gen­er­al David Mor­ri­son, as the Army Oper­a­tional Air­wor­thi­ness Author­i­ty (OAA), has lift­ed the pre­cau­tion­ary sus­pen­sion fol­low­ing air­wor­thi­ness advice from the Tech­ni­cal Air­wor­thi­ness Author­i­ty (TAA).

Direc­tor Gen­er­al Avi­a­tion Brigadier Neil Tur­ton said the OAA has autho­rised fly­ing oper­a­tions to resume fol­low­ing a thor­ough inves­ti­ga­tion and con­sul­ta­tion with experts from the US Army and Boeing. 

“Through thor­ough inves­ti­ga­tion and con­sul­ta­tion with Boe­ing and the US Army – the largest oper­a­tor of the CH-47D Chi­nook – we estab­lished there are no issues with the air­craft AFCS,” Brigadier Tur­ton said.‪ 

“The CH-47D sus­pen­sion that was put in place has now been lift­ed and all fly­ing oper­a­tions have now resumed. 

“The pre­cau­tion­ary sus­pen­sion was imposed to ensure safe­ty and is con­sis­tent with Army Oper­a­tion Air­wor­thi­ness procedures.” 

The Aus­tralian Army oper­ates five CH-47D Chi­nook air­craft. Of the five air­craft, two are deployed to Afghanistan, one is deployed to Papua New Guinea, one is on Horn Island and the remain­ing air­craft is in Townsville where the Chi­nook fleet is based. 

Press release
Min­is­te­r­i­al Sup­port and Pub­lic Affairs,
Depart­ment of Defence,
Can­ber­ra, Australia 

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