Aircraft 'reliable' despite three breakdowns

Hercules from New Zealand's 40 Squadron fly in for Operation Tropic Twilight in Tuvalu. Photo / NZPA

The New Zealand Defence Force maintains it can still offer disaster relief to remote Pacific Islands, despite all three aircraft involved in Operation Tropic Twilight breaking down this week.

More than 300 New Zealand Defence Force staff are in Tuvalu, about 3700km north of New Zealand for the exercise, which assumes the low-lying islands have been hammered by a tropical cyclone.

But efforts to fly in supplies and personnel have been hampered by mechanical faults with aircraft.

First the Air Force's 757 broke down at Whenuapai airbase in Auckland before it could start ferrying soldiers to the island at the weekend.

Two of the Air Force's five Hercules aircraft, which are 45 years old, took up the slack with extra flights, but yesterday morning both were grounded with mechanical faults, one in Samoa, the other at Whenuapai, before being cleared to fly.

Lieutenant Colonel Todd Hart, the head of the National Command Element for the exercise, said he did not believe the breakdowns undermined New Zealand's ability to help disaster-struck islands.

"I think it shows the importance of strategic air assets and the ability to come up with contingency plans.

"I don't think it throws anything in doubt. I think it just proves the challenges of trying to project a force quite a distance, and we are working the planes hard to do so."

He believed the aircraft remained reliable.

"The reality is that we maximise our use of them. In an aircraft it's quite simple, anything you get, like a warning light or anything goes off, you are not in a position you can just crack on and fly anyway, as if it's a car."

The same thing would apply to commercial flights, he said.

The Army's Major Andrew Brookes, commander of the land forces in Tuvalu, said the breakdowns had imposed a few delays on the start of some activities.

"At the end of the day they will reduce the timeframe we have to achieve all our indicated tasks. We will have to work harder to achieve them."

Major Brookes did not think the aircraft breakdowns undermined the force's ability to do its job.

"You can never necessarily confirm the availability of strategic assets to conduct tasks, and we are subject to those assets falling over from time to time."

When asked whether New Zealand would be able to help if the exercise turned into a reality, Major Brookes said "potentially possibly".

- NZPA