A helicopter fault left Iceland’s Coast Guard without aircraft for hours

Iceland’s Coast Guard was without an operational helicopter for several hours this week after a fault grounded its only available aircraft, mbl.is reported. The helicopter was made flight-ready again within a few hours, Coast Guard communications director Ásgeir Erlendsson said.

Erlendsson said the fault occurred on Tuesday and was minor and unexpected. The Coast Guard has three helicopters, with one normally assigned to long-term maintenance and efforts made to keep two available for most of the year. It cannot guarantee two will always be ready, and for a small part of the year only one may be available.

Justice Minister Þorbjörg Sigríður Gunnlaugsdóttir said the Coast Guard has increased the number of aircraft engineers and changed shift arrangements to reduce the time needed to address unexpected faults when only two helicopters are available.

The Coast Guard is also assessing what its future fleet should look like ahead of the end of its current lease term. Gunnlaugsdóttir said having four helicopters would be the ideal, but each step would involve costs running into billions. Erlendsson said a 2020 estimate put the cost of buying three new helicopters, including training and equipment needed to operate them, at more than 14 billion. Prices have risen since then.

Iceland aims to spend 1.5 per cent of gross domestic product on defence-related projects and infrastructure by 2035. Gunnlaugsdóttir said this is not a payment to NATO, but Iceland’s own spending on defence and security. For a country without a military, she said, civilian infrastructure is an important part of such investment, and the Coast Guard clearly falls within that category. She also cited some policing and civil protection functions, adding that work is under way to define what qualifies.

Gunnlaugsdóttir said the Coast Guard plays a key role in search and rescue and law enforcement at sea, and is important to the safety of people travelling around the country.