Ill-fated Sea Kings get wings clipped

Australian military staff walk across the Halim Air Force Base in Jakarta after a ceremony honouring colleagues killed in the crash. Picture / Reuters

CANBERRA - The Australian Navy has grounded its remaining Westland Sea Kings following the helicopter crash that killed nine aircrew and medical staff during an earthquake relief mission on the Indonesian island of Nias.

The accident on Saturday was one of the Defence Force's worst peacetime disasters, prompting Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to announce that the victims, including two survivors, would be awarded his nation's Medal of Honour.

"Our hearts go out to their families and I want them to know that the people and Government of Indonesia are grateful for their noble contribution in helping those who are suffering in Nias," he said yesterday during a state visit to Canberra.

Prime Minister John Howard also said every appropriate honour would be paid to the victims, whose bodies were expected to be returned to Australia as early as today.

The 30-year-old Sea Kings - the Navy's workhorses - have been upgraded to extend their working life for another decade, but the crash has raised concerns over their future.

Although they will be eventually replaced, the big British-built choppers play a key role in search and rescue, communications and surveillance and transport, able to carry a Land Rover and other heavy equipment for both military and humanitarian missions.

None of the remaining Seahawk, Seasprite or Squirrel helicopters have the capabilities that have kept the Sea Kings at the forefront of the Navy's recent operations.

The helicopter that crashed on Nias, Shark 02, was one of seven still flying with the Nowra, southern New South Wales-based 817 Squadron, from an original fleet of 13.

Designed by the American Sikorsky company originally for anti-submarine work, the Australian Sea Kings were an extensively modified British version that was changed from combat to general duties with the Australian Navy in 1995.

Both the American and British versions remain in service with more than a dozen navies, although they are being phased out of service in the US, and other navies are looking for replacements.

Yesterday the Navy's Maritime Commander, Rear Admiral Rowan Moffit, said the remaining Sea Kings would be grounded until the cause of the Nias crash was determined.

"We've decided that for the moment, until we've found out more detail about exactly what occurred and why, we won't fly [the Sea Kings]," he said.

Howard told ABC radio that many Sea Kings of a similar age - or even older - were still flying around the world. "It has not been the experience of other countries that age is necessarily a cause of a fatality or of an accident," he said.

But commentators have also pointed to the pressure of the Defence Force workload, with about 2000 personnel operating in a wide range of missions abroad, including Iraq and earthquake- and tsunami-devastated Indonesia.

Yesterday, the amphibious support ship Tobruk left for the Gulf with equipment for the Army's new deployment in southern Iraq.

The crashed helicopter was operating from the amphibious ship HMAS Kanimbla, which had been working in Indonesia following the Boxing Day tsunami.

It was ordered back to Nias from Singapore after the earthquake struck.