Badham Says Navy to Slap Restrictions on Marine Copters

The troubled CH-53E Super Stallion, the Marines’ biggest cargo and troop helicopter, will be barred from combat maneuvers or carrying heavy external loads over populated areas under new restrictions to be imposed by the Navy’s high command, an Orange County congressman said Tuesday.

The new rules may be imposed as early as today, Rep. Robert E. Badham (R-Newport Beach) said.

Other restrictions facing the accident-prone aircraft, Badham said, would prohibit Super Stallions from carrying passengers--other than the four-person crew--when externally lifting cargo.

Also, the aircraft, the largest mass production helicopter in the world, would not be allowed to make vertical landings in unprepared areas where dust and dirt is “kicked up” by the helicopter’s rotor blades.

More than half of the Marines’ 92 CH-53Es are stationed at the Tustin Marine Corps Helicopter Air Station. But, according to Marine officials there, they have not been flying since they were temporarily grounded Feb. 14 to check and replace suspect gearbox assemblies.

Badham made public the flight restrictions Tuesday, after meeting with the Navy’s inspector general to discuss the results of an investigation conducted into the helicopter. On Friday, Navy Secretary John F. Lehman announced that the Navy was imposing restrictions on the controversial Super Stallion because of that probe. But Lehman did not say what the restrictions were, although he indicated they already were in effect.

Badham said Tuesday that after speaking with the inspector general, he learned that the restrictions had not yet been imposed. Badham said he urged the inspector general to have the Navy impose them as soon as possible.

The restrictions, if imposed today, will remain in effect until needed engineering changes can be “back-fitted” into the existing fleet. The engineering changes will be made on all new models built by Sikorsky Aircraft, a division of United Technologies Inc. of Hartford, Conn. The Navy did not elaborate on the deficiencies that were pointed out by the inspector general.

Badham, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, earlier sent a letter to Lehman asking that the Navy indefinitely ground the helicopter until the military could convince Congress that the aircraft was safe to fly.

In announcing the restrictions Friday, Lehman did not mention Badham’s letter, which said that his congressional probe found that the helicopter had a possible “inherent design deficiency” that produced low-level vibrations.

Badham, until recently a staunch supporter of the Super Stallion, said Tuesday that he did not consider the Navy’s flight restrictions “an adequate response” to his earlier call to indefinitely ground the CH-53Es. He said he wanted the Navy’s comments on the problem “on the record.” He said Navy officials would appear before Congress to explain why it was safe to continue to fly the helicopters.

String of Accidents

The worldwide fleet of 92 Marine helicopters has been involved in a string of fatal accidents that have claimed the lives of at least 20 enlisted men and officers and injured l7 others. In the latest crash Jan. 8, five Marines were killed when their CH-53E slammed into the desert during a routine training mission near the Salton Sea in Imperial County.