A Cloud Over Helicopters : City, LAPD Drawing Up Plans to Replace 3 Aging Aircraft

City and police officials are devising a plan to gradually replace the Los Angeles Police Department’s aging fleet of helicopters amid growing concerns that three of the aircraft are plagued by leaks, corroded wiring and radio problems and pose a safety threat.

The three helicopters--which fly over neighborhoods from South Los Angeles to the San Fernando Valley--date to the 1970s, and each has logged more than 32,000 hours of flight time, among the highest in the world for their model.

By comparison, the county Sheriff’s Department tries to replace its patrol helicopters before they accumulate 10,000 hours of air time.

Although LAPD officials and city mechanics contend that the aircraft are reliable and would not be dispatched otherwise, two memos obtained by The Times--one from the Police Department and one from City Hall--indicate that there are growing concerns about safety.

The three Bell JetRanger helicopters “are becoming a liability” because of many maintenance problems, which have hampered the ability of air crews “to do their job effectively” and have created an “officer safety issue,” according to a memo written by a police official and sent to City Councilwoman Laura Chick.

LAPD Capt. John R. Trundle, commanding officer of the Air Support Division, said the memo may have overstated the problem.

“We absolutely are not sending aircraft that are unsafe into the air,” Trundle said. “We don’t see it as a safety issue, but the fact is, there are more than 32,000 hours on these copters. . . . At some point, you have to turn these over.”

That opinion was affirmed by a mechanic with the city’s general services maintenance division, which maintains the LAPD’s fleet of 16 helicopters.

“I could fly in one of these today and feel very safe,” said mechanic Mike Pattison. “I would even take my daughter up in them.”

The department’s helicopters provide an observation post to assist officers on the ground. They are considered an indispensable law enforcement tool.

Last year, the Air Support Division handled more than 43,000 calls, had the first unit at a scene nearly 15,000 times and was involved in 424 auto pursuits and 696 chases of pedestrians, according to police statistics.

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The Police Department has been trying to obtain the funding to replace the aging aircraft, but because of budget constraints, the requests have been denied for four consecutive years, officials said.

“There is a lot of concern with pilots here that these ships are so old that something is going to happen,” said one officer assigned to the Air Support Division, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “I fly those ships, and though we have some very good maintenance, I still worry.”

All three helicopters have been completely rebuilt twice, except for their frames and electrical wiring, according to police officials.

The memos state that the helicopters are noisier than necessary, suffer from corroded wiring and radio problems that interfere with ground-to-air communication, and have frames that are not as “tight” as they should be. Rain leaks into the cockpits, requiring that the aircraft be dried in a garage.

A source close to the situation said pilots and observers alerted city officials to the potential safety problems, prompting the City Council last week to pass a motion ordering the city’s chief administrative office and the Police Department to develop a helicopter-replacement plan and modify a city bond program to include funding for new helicopters, which could cost as much as $1.6 million a piece.

“We’re pushing the envelope on safety,” said Chick, who sponsored the motion. The councilwoman said she learned of the situation during a helicopter ride-along she recently took with officers from the Air Support Division.

“It would be more typical, but highly unacceptable to me that the city would take action after a tragedy occurred,” Chick said.

The City Hall memo reiterated Chick’s concerns and those expressed by the LAPD, adding that maintenance costs are expected to escalate. The three helicopters were overhauled recently at a cost of more than $250,000 apiece. Repair costs in the 1995-96 fiscal year are expected to total more than $225,000.

Sheriff’s Lt. Jim DiGiovanna, who heads flight operations for his department’s Aero Bureau, said the department learned an expensive lesson in 1987 when it replaced 10 helicopters at once, including several that had logged more than 20,000 hours of flight time. He said the Sheriff’s Department now tries to replace its fleet gradually.

“We were concerned with safety issues, but also it was not economically efficient to continue to fly aircraft,” DiGiovanna said. “At that point, newer aircraft became less expensive to operate.”

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In the LAPD fleet, only five of the 16 helicopters have less than 10,000 flight hours. Two aircraft have flown more than 34,000 hours and another has logged in excess of 32,000 hours.

In theory, a helicopter with proper maintenance can be safely flown for an unlimited number of hours because the parts are constantly replaced to meet Federal Aviation Administration regulations, according to industry officials.

“We look at helicopters as a renewable resource,” said Frank L. Jensen, president of Helicopter Assn. International, a Washington-based trade group that boasts 1,600 members who fly 4,000 helicopters.

“They can last forever,” Jensen said. “Particularly ones that are a classic design like the JetRanger.”

But in practice, “there are not a lot of us who put more than 30,000 hours on a machine as a matter of routine,” said Thomas Marlow, vice chairman of the Helicopter Safety Advisory Conference, an organization based in Houston that promotes safety among helicopter operators involved in offshore oil operations. “It depends on how it is used and maintained.

“I know the LAPD has an excellent operation,” Marlow added. “They’re probably one of the leaders in the nation. So if those folks are having some concerns, I would trust their opinions.”

Because the LAPD helicopters are government-operated, they are exempt from federal safety standards, said Hank Verbais, an FAA spokesman. But mechanics such as Pattison who repair the city helicopters used by the LAPD are FAA-certified and abide by FAA guidelines, police officials said.

Trundle said that if the city could not afford to buy new aircraft, his division would be willing to buy used ones with fewer flight hours. Another option, said LAPD Lt. Wayne Woolway of the Air Support Division, could be obtaining helicopters used by other city agencies.

“The department has been asked to do more with less for a number of years,” said Pattison. “But you can’t just keep getting by.”