Norway cancels contract for 14 European NH90 helicopters and demands compensation

“Our helicopter is not working as it should”General Erik Kristofferson, commander of the Norwegian Army. On Friday, June 10, Norway announced, due to delivery delays and availability issues, the cancellation of a contract for 14 NH90 military transport helicopters with the European industrial consortium NH Industries (NHI), headquartered in Aix-en-Provence.

Despite the order placed more than twenty years ago, Oslo confirmed that it had received only eight fully functional examples of aircraft made by NHI, which is 62.5% owned by Airbus Helicopters, 32% by Italy’s Leonardo and 5.5% by Dutch company Fokker Aerostructures. . The Norwegian government will return 13 helicopters that have already been delivered and is also demanding payment of 5 billion kroner (about 500 million euros), it was announced during Press Conference.

“Unfortunately, we have come to the conclusion that no matter how many hours our technicians work and how many spare parts are required, this will not make the NH90 able to meet the needs of the Norwegian Army.”Defense Minister Björn Ereld Gram said. His ministry is about to begin ” quickly “ The government said in a statement it was a process to identify an alternative model.

reliability issues

This cancellation is a new setback for the NH90 following the early retirement of the model in the Australian Army, which was announced in December 2021, in favor of American Sikorsky’s UH-60M Black Hawk.

In addition to delivery delays – which were initially brought in for the delivery of 14 copies in 2008 – the Norwegian Army has decried reliability and maintenance problems and parts obsolescence.

The Norwegian Army had hoped for an annual flying time of 3,900 hours, but in reality, 700 flying hours were set, according to the ministry. Norwegian NH90s are designed for Coast Guard and underwater warfare missions.

in communicationNHI wrote that the Norwegian government’s decision to cancel this contract was ‘Without legal basis’ and declared himself “Very disappointed”.