Air ambulance grounded due to fears over safety

SWANSEA'S air ambulance has been grounded on safety concerns.

Two of Wales's three air ambulances - including the one based at Swansea Airport - have been stopped from flying.

The helicopters based in Caernarfon and the airport at Fairwood in Gower will not return to the skies until the safety checks are carried out.

It comes after cracks in rotor blades were found on an identical model operating in Scotland.

The EC 135 model is used by Air Ambulance Services in Scotland, Wales, the North West, Midlands and other counties.

A spokeswoman for the Wales Air Ambulance said the third helicopter, based in Welshpool in Powys, would be covering the whole of Wales while checks were being carried out on the other two.

The organisation's operations manager Jason Williams said: "Cracks have been found on one particular aircraft.

"As a precaution, the helicopters have been grounded so they can be tested rigorously and an investigation is being carried out by the manufacturers.

"The helicopter based in Welshpool is still operating and its hours have been extended," he added.

The grounding resulted when the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) ordered increased safety inspections while a possible fault was investigated. The main operator of the helicopters for the fleet, Bond Air Services, said its mechanics had found a crack during maintenance work at Staverton Airport in Gloucestershire and reported it to Eurocopter, the firm which manufactures them.

It did not order the fleet to be grounded but Bond said it felt it had to take the decision to ground the helicopters.

A spokesman for Bond said: "We take the view that this has been going on long enough.

Urgently "Eurocopter need to give a definitive statement about the problem and the solution to it.

"Until that happens we've taken the view that safety comes first and have suspended the service."

Tim MacMahon, director of government and public affairs at Eurocopter UK, said the advice was to step up daily visual checks while the company awaited further advice from its own airworthiness investigators.

"That work is urgently going on, but it is always the final decision of the pilot or the operator whether to fly or not," he said.

The EC 135 also operates in Devon, Dorset, Somerset, the Midlands and the Thames Valley area.

In total, 22 of the models have been withdrawn across the country.? [email protected]