[SonicPs]

We already know that > $1-billion Indian naval deal for 16 multi-role helicopters is already in mud slinging phase by rivals. The NATO Helicopter Industries (NHI) — the European consortium of France, German, Italy, Spain, Finland and Australia firms — has questioned the claims of the rival American firm Sikorsky, known for making Black Hawk and Seahawk gun ships. The NHI is pushing its NH90 helicopter. Sikorsky has offered Black Hawk’s naval variant “Seahawk” helicopter S-70B.

NHI has now directly written to Indian defence minister AK Antony and has said that it has doubts on Navy’s technical evaluation process alleging that it has reportedly “cleared” Sikorsky S-70B helicopter on several counts “despite its shortcomings in many required fields”. The NHI has charged that “Sikorsky has made doubtful claims about its machine’s compliance”.

NHI charges that Sikorsky’s S-70B helicopter could not have cleared the recently concluded field evaluation trials, at least, in eight specific areas, had the naval staff requirements been strictly examined and adhered to. The specific areas are mainly related to mandatory features like the flight-control system, internal and external fuel tanks, deck-lock system and fuel reserve.

As per Chandigarh based The Tribune, The NHI claims that it wrote to Antony as it did not receive any response to an earlier letter sent by its senior vice-president G Saponaro to Defence Secretary SK Sharma on December 15, 2011.

The NHI has also tried to “link” the deal with the US naval commandoes’ operation in Abbottabad, 60 miles north of Islamabad, to kill Al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden in May 2011. One of the Black Hawk helicopters, while hovering over the sprawling complex where Laden was hiding, had crashed.

As Black Hawk and Seahawk have many “common features”, the European consortium has drawn Antony’s attention to the NASA Report 1374, which linked the loss of five Black Hawk variant aircraft to failures in the stabilator-control system.