Black Hawks still grounded as floods engulf NSW and Queensland coasts

Cyclone Alfred and its aftermath have provided a reminder of how ludicrously easily red tape can bind authorities in knots.

Nearly seven years after plans to gift two army helicopters to the NSW Rural Fire Service were unveiled, the Black Hawks are still down, unable to be used for their new missions to fly firefighters to floods, bushfires and other disasters.

With great fanfare, the Turnbull government announced the helicopters would be given to the RFS in mid-2018 to bolster its aerial squadron once they were withdrawn from armed forces service. But the promise never eventuated, even as Australia battled through the Black Summer of 2019-2020. The Defence Force belatedly handed two Black Hawks retired from armed service to the RFS in October 2023.

However, a stumbling block has prevented the helicopters from joining the NSW disaster relief operations. They were designed as military aircraft and require substantial certification alterations to enter RFS service due to restrictions under federal law on them being used to fly civilian passengers.

The Herald’s Matt O’Sullivan reported that the RFS said a key factor in the decision to proceed with the Black Hawk project was the verbal agreement from the Civil Aviation Safety Authority. Emails have revealed that RFS commissioner Rob Rogers asked CASA as far back as late 2018 to confirm there were no “showstoppers” with the Black Hawks from a “regulation point of view”. Months later, Rogers told CASA in an email that he needed to “understand we can work through the issues” before accepting a helicopter and committing NSW government funds. A key aim of the helicopters for the RFS was to use them to fly firefighters to remote areas to be on standby for lightning strikes.

Black Hawks have been used extensively by militaries around the world. The Australian Defence Force ordered 39; five were lost, including a 1996 crash at Townsville that claimed 18 lives. Black Hawks are used extensively in the US to help with wildfires.

Seven years later, the RFS is spending about $6.5 million refurbishing and certifying the helicopters – a huge commitment based on a verbal agreement.

The RFS expects the aircraft to become operational in coming months. However, even then, restrictions on using the Black Hawks to fly emergency service personnel to natural disasters mean they will mainly be used as water-bombers until a breakthrough can be reached in the long-running saga to have the limits removed.

For its part, CASA stated the obvious, maintaining it had consistently advised the Black Hawks did not meet civil aviation safety standards for passenger transport. It said it was working to allow the aircrafts’ use in specialist firefighting operations not involving transport of firefighters.

Both organisations seem to have lost sight of the obvious: seven years and $6.5 million later, as floods inundate South East Queensland and northern NSW, the helicopters remain MIA, and the RFS and CASA are swathed in bureaucratic red tape that has delivered nothing to NSW taxpayers.

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