Värk questions plan to buy five new helicopters

Before spending a quarter of a billion euros on helicopters, Estonia must determine which problem it is trying to solve, writes Ivar Värk in an opinion article published by ERR.

Estonia has recently held an active debate over the future of the state’s aviation capability. The proposal on the table would invest roughly a quarter of a billion euros to renew the Police and Border Guard Board’s existing helicopter fleet and expand it to five helicopters, along with an additional surveillance aircraft.

The aim is to improve rescue capability, medical assistance, border security and the fulfilment of NATO-related obligations. Värk, an aviation specialist, former head of the Police and Border Guard Board’s air unit and chairman of the board of Lennuliiklusteeninduse AS, says he does not dispute those objectives.

Värk says he knows from experience how important it is for the state to have the necessary aviation capability in peacetime, during crises and in wartime, whether to help a person in distress at sea or find someone who is missing.

However, he questions whether five new helicopters and a surveillance aircraft would solve the existing problems. He says a basic management principle is that doing the same things in the same way should not be expected to produce a different result.

Much of the current discussion has focused on the low availability of the existing AW139 helicopters, lengthy maintenance periods and the ageing fleet’s inability to ensure the required readiness. Air unit chief Rain Jõeveer has also highlighted the lengthy maintenance periods.

Värk says the AW139 is a highly capable aircraft used successfully around the world, primarily for transporting people but also for search and rescue, security and medical missions.

He argues that the main problem lies instead in how the system operates as a whole. As a state institution, the Police and Border Guard Board must follow procurement and procedural rules that make maintenance considerably slower than in the private sector.

Additional work and parts requiring replacement are often identified during maintenance. This leads to new procedures, approvals and, frequently, new procurements. As a result, a helicopter may remain in maintenance for months, and sometimes for more than a year, a point also raised by Interior Minister Igor Taro.

“So if the greatest problem is the length of maintenance, why is the first solution to buy more helicopters rather than change the maintenance system?” Värk asks.

Based on his experience working with medical helicopters in the United Kingdom, Värk says a 1,200-hour maintenance procedure normally took a couple of weeks, not months. Before buying new equipment, he says, Estonia should analyse whether the bottlenecks in the existing system lie in the aircraft themselves or in the processes.

Värk also says the state should answer honestly whether it needs to provide all aviation services itself. The current system is being used for very different tasks, including search and rescue at sea, medical flights, border protection, support for special operations and crisis response.

He questions whether one universal solution is best for all these tasks. In his experience, each job requires the right tool. A car repair shop would not use a Swiss Army knife for every task.

Medical flights are one example. Most European countries have established specialised HEMS systems, whose purpose is to bring medical care to patients as quickly as possible. In Estonia, the non-profit organisation Eesti Kiirabikopter has for years pointed out that a rescue helicopter and an air ambulance are not the same thing.

A large maritime rescue helicopter is an excellent tool at sea, Värk says, but asks whether it is always the best solution for providing rapid assistance to a single patient. He says the question at least deserves discussion.