The Chief of army says there are no plans to bring forward the retirement of Australia's troubled Taipan helicopter fleet despite an emergency last month involving a "frightening" engine failure.
During a night-time training exercise on March 28, one of the army's MRH-90s was forced to ditch into the sea at Jervis Bay, prompting the Australian Defence Force to temporarily ground the European-designed aircraft.
Several military insiders have since come forward to claim the ADF failed to install crucial software upgrades on all 47 of Australia's Taipans despite warnings that the IT fix developed a decade ago could prevent possible engine failures.
In an interview with the ABC, Lieutenant General Simon Stuart has declined to comment on the assertion but has conceded army's planned transition to US-made Black Hawks will come with "challenges".
"There is an investigation currently underway, and it would be premature to be speculating as to cause and the factors that led into that" General Stuart said.
"We know for a fact that there was an engine failure in one of the engines, and we know for a fact that the crew performed magnificently in ensuring that everyone got to walk away from that accident."
Speaking from New Zealand, the army chief also insisted that the ADF and industry partners had done an "amazing job" trying to keep the MRH-90 operating, before the Albanese government confirmed the fleet would be replaced a decade early than scheduled.
"We haven't been able to get the sort of rate of effort and reliability that we require, so we're now looking at other options to ensure that we can deliver what our nation requires of us".
In January Labor announced it would implement a multi-billion-dollar decision of the previous Coalition government to begin replacing the Taipan helicopters with American-made Black Hawks from as early as this year.
General Stuart says there are no plans to hasten the transition to Black Hawks but said the army was focused on making sure the process was as smooth as possible.
"That transition plan is not without its challenges, but we are working with our industry partners both for MRH-90 and for the Black Hawk to ensure there's a smooth transition."
"It's obviously a difficult time for everyone — everyone's worked very, very hard to ensure that this platform could work as best it can – and we're very confident that we've given it every effort and every chance".
