Government will not ground Hercules planes
The Ministry of Defence will not ground the RAF’s fleet of Hercules cargo planes, despite the US decision to ground aircraft of the same series because of wing cracks.
The US air force’s decision comes less than a fortnight after an RAF C-130 Hercules crashed in Iraq, killing all ten British service members on board. The cause of the crash has not yet been identified.
But a spokesman for the Ministry of Defence stressed on Saturday that the model of plane used by the RAF is “very different” from the one grounded by the US.
“We don’t fly the C130-E type of Hercules they’re talking about so there’s no inference to be drawn for the RAF from the American decision,” the spokesman said.
“It is completely unrelated to the aircraft which we have, which is a C130-K. These are a much more modern aircraft than the E.”
Commenting on the current investigation into the crash of the British Hercules plane on January 30th, the MoD spokesman added: “If the president of the board of inquiry which is currently investigating the crash of the RAF Hercules thought there was any risk to flight safety then obviously the UK plane would have been grounded.”
The spokesman also stressed that Britain had been “liaising” with the US over the C-130 model since the Iraq tragedy, but confirmed that until a full report on the crash was completed, no definite cause for the incident could be stated.
The Ministry of Defence added that the Hercules model used by Britain was much younger than the plane used by the US in terms of years and flying hours and thus had a lower fatigue rate. The spokesman also stressed that the wing structure of the British plane was “more durable and stronger” than that of the US model.
The US air force decided to ground 30 C-130s, including those transporting supplies to Iraq, after inspections showed the planes had more cracks to a “centre wing box structure” than expected.
