Military to fly old rescue planes longer as COVID delays new aircraft

The Royal Canadian Air Force is being forced to fly its ancient search-and-rescue planes even longer as COVID19 further delays the delivery of replacement aircraft.

The Defence Department is playing down any significant impact on the military’s searchand-rescue operations from the new delay, which has left the first of 16 new Airbus-built CC-295s stranded in Spain for at least several more months.

Jessica Lamirande, a department spokeswoman, said a recent analysis conducted by the Air Force and procurement officials concluded the military has “the necessary flexibility” to keep flying its current searchand-rescue planes.

Those planes include six Buffalo aircraft and seven oldermodel Hercules planes. Their primary role is to find and rescue Canadians stranded or in danger in places or situations where municipal or provincial authorities are unable to respond.

Yet the planes are all around 50 years old and scheduled for retirement as maintenance requirements have grown and spare parts become harder to find. In 2014, officials had to get parts from a museum in Trenton, Ont., in 2014 to fix a broken Hercules.

Canada’s auditor general also raised concerns about the state of the aircraft in a scathing report in 2013, noting the Buffalo aircraft were unavailable on 119 occasions in 2011. In five of those cases, no other airplane was available.

Lamirande said the Buffalo and Hercules planes would be able to operate until the CC-295s are in the air, saying: “We have the necessary flexibility to ensure continued and safe SAR coverage utilizing the existing capability.