The company accuses the regulator of changing the rules in the middle of a contract costing 5 million euros a year to the Portuguese state
The season of fires is approaching, and the drought that Portugal is experiencing may exacerbate the risk of forest fires this summer of 2023, but the heavy helicopters hired by the Portuguese state still do not know if they can fly from the beginning of June.
With the regulations currently in place, the company providing the service warns that Kamov will remain on the ground.
It’s all because of a new regulation by the National Civil Aviation Authority (ANAC) that requires pilots involved in firefighting to speak Portuguese.
The three Kamov helicopters, manufactured in Russia, are leased to a Ukrainian company and have Ukrainian pilots and some Moldovans who come to Portugal just to operate these air means.
Since six Kamovs bought in 2007 by the Portuguese state (in the meantime offered to Ukraine) have not been commissioned, since 2019 the Air Force has leased three Kamovs for the warmer months for €5.5 million annually.
“Now they don’t fit in?”
Luis Ferreira, CEO of Heliportugal (the company that won the public tender launched by the Air Force and which charters helicopters in Ukraine), explains to Exclusive TVI (from CNN Portugal Group) that this year they were surprised by an unprecedented condition. to make.
The new ANAC regulation now states that all pilots involved in firefighting, in any type of aircraft, must have a level 4 proficiency in Portuguese.
“The crew we have does not have the ability to learn Portuguese overnight,” says the Heliportugal chief, adding that he will also need to take an exam, which is impossible to complete in time.
The state still wants to rent two more Kamov
“This contract has another four years in 2023, and now we have to do it differently?” asks Nuno Faria, Heliportugal’s lawyer. Just because they don’t speak portuguese.
The requirement comes at a time when TVI knows the government has even sought to bolster aerial means of firefighting, in a bid to lease two more Kamov helicopters for 2023.
If nothing changes, Heliportugal warns that Portugal risks not having two more Kamovs, nor the three already on contract since 2020 who always travel with crews from Eastern Europe.
The aviation regulator partially surrenders
However, the National Civil Aviation Authority recognized that the requirement that all pilots speak Portuguese could be an issue in firefighting and introduced new changes in public consultation until 29 May.
The regulator says that “taking into account the undeniable public interest” in firefighting, it is possible for one of the pilots on board to not speak competent Portuguese, provided the aircraft has more than one pilot and one of them expresses himself well in Portuguese.
For Exclusive, ANAC argues that this requirement follows a proposal made at the first public consultation held in 2022 on the same regulation and safeguards that no operator has previously warned of the impossibility of complying with this requirement. In addition, there was a one-year transition period.
According to the regulator, speaking Portuguese is an advantage in terms of safety and allows for better communication with those coordinating firefighting on the ground, in an idea criticized by Heliportugal that maintains that the common language across all aviation is English.
The company argues that it doesn’t make sense to require people to know the language of the country in which the fires are well fought, a requirement that is impossible to meet given the many flying hours also required, as an experiment, in Portugal, for every pilot who operates a camouflage.
Full suspension or camouflaged on the ground
O Exclusivo spoke with other companies that lease air resources to the state and in addition to Heliportugal, only Helibravo complains about the new regulation, having had great difficulties in finding pilots, despite ensuring that its helicopters did not respond, this year, to danger.
After the partial concession by ANAC, which admits that only one pilot speaks Portuguese, Heliportugal points out that even then it will not be possible to comply with the new regulation in 2023, demanding a complete suspension of the rule.
Without that comment, the three people the state has hired from Kamov will be on the ground as of June 1, which is the date they should be available to fight the fire.
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