Australia — Diagnostic Review of MRH-90 Multi Role Helicopter Program

A full diag­nos­tic review of the MRH-90 Mul­ti Role Heli­copter Pro­gram has now been com­plet­ed.
The review was ordered in Feb­ru­ary by the Min­is­ter for Defence Stephen Smith and the Min­is­ter for Defence Materiel Jason Clare to address delays to the project.

It was chaired by the Deputy Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer of the Defence Materiel Organ­i­sa­tion Mr War­ren King sup­port­ed by a num­ber of inde­pen­dent specialists. 

The review has rec­om­mend­ed that the project should not be added to the Project of Con­cern list at this time. 

It has rec­om­mend­ed that Defence work with the con­trac­tor, Aus­tralian Aero­space, to imple­ment a reme­di­a­tion plan to improve the avail­abil­i­ty of the heli­copters by address­ing engi­neer­ing and reli­a­bil­i­ty issues. 

The project will be the sub­ject of a fur­ther diag­nos­tic review lat­er this year to exam­ine the effec­tive­ness of the action tak­en and whether fur­ther action is necessary. 

The diag­nos­tic review was ordered to address delays to the project due to a series of key issues includ­ing engine fail­ure, trans­mis­sion oil cool­er fan fail­ures and the poor avail­abil­i­ty of spares. 

As report­ed in both the Defence Annu­al Report and the ANAO Major Project Report released last year, the project has suf­fered delays of 12 months for the Navy’s heli­copters and 18 months for the Army’s helicopters. 

To date, 13 MRH-90 heli­copters have been accept­ed by Defence and are cur­rent­ly being used for test­ing and ini­tial crew training. 

Media con­tact: Kore­na Flana­gan – 02 6277 7620 

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

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