Bond Air Services, the operator of the Scottish Police EC135 which had a tragic accident on 29th November, issued the following statement on Thursday 12th:-

“During normal operations yesterday, one of our EC135 fleet has experienced an indication defect that requires further technical investigation. Therefore as a precautionary measure we have temporarily suspended service operations whilst we undertake detailed diagnosis. We commenced investigations overnight, are continuing this morning and are in close liaison with Eurocopter regarding this investigation.”

then updated it with

“Further to our update earlier this morning we can confirm that we continue to investigate the technical fault that resulted in us temporarily suspending service operations yesterday.  We are now conducting functional tests across each of our EC135 aircraft in order to gather more specific information.”

Bond declined to comment further to HeliHub.com – particularly on whether the “technical fault” was in any way linked to the Scottish Police accident enquiry.  The timing of the above statement being issued may have unnecessarily given rise to concern, as a lot of Bond’s UK customers were themselves issuing press releases later the same day, including some saying they were back flying again.  These included:-

• Hampshire & Isle of Wight Air Ambulance –
• North West Air Ambulance – advised grounding and said “there is no link to any other incidents”

Reading through these and other available sources, the issue appears to revolve around fuel and the indications to the pilot as to how much fuel was in the tank.  The National Police Air Service – responsible for a good number of other EC135s across the UK – did not ground their aircraft.

Jeremy Parkin – HeliHub.com