Fleet of aging RCMP aircraft "highly risky:" report

Internal review also cites shortage of pilots and equipment

The RCMP’s geriatric airplanes and helicopters are long past their replacement dates, with almost half of the 30-aircraft fleet deemed in “poor or failed condition,” says an internal report.

The Mounties operate the aircraft only on daytime business hours, Monday to Friday, despite a round-the-clock demand for emergencies.

The fleet is made up of too many single-engine aircraft, flown by lone pilots without co-pilots, which makes covering the vast expanse of Canada “highly risky.”

And crews lack “adequate lights, night vision goggles, multi-sensor cameras, or hoist equipment to support current operations.”

Those are some of the findings of a newly released evaluation of the troubled RCMP Air Services Program.

The report, covering six fiscal years ending in March 2023, validates and extends the findings of Nova Scotia’s Mass Casualty Commission (MCC), released in the same month.

The commission examined RCMP missteps on the weekend of April 18-19, 2020, when a lone gunman murdered 22 people in Nova Scotia. Among many other failings, officials faulted the force for the lack of a helicopter to pursue the shooter, or to locate victims from the air using body-heat detection technology.

The MCC determined that the nearest RCMP helicopter that weekend was in hundreds of pieces, undergoing scheduled maintenance in a Moncton, N.B., hangar. Officers directing the pursuit of the killer had not been warned the Mountie helicopter would be unavailable for that period. And a substitute chopper had not been lined up beforehand.

Officers wasted precious hours overnight trying to locate an available rotary-wing aircraft. In the end, they had to wait until daylight Sunday for a natural resources helicopter operated by the Nova Scotia government to launch, the commissioners said.

The new evaluation of the Air Services Program is much more critical than a previous review in 2015, which cited a lack of coordination for operations at the RCMP’s 19 air bases across Canada.

The new report raises disturbing questions about the continued safety of flights, with 28 of the 30 aircraft flying on just one engine – and just one pilot in the cockpit. Evaluators compared five other air services operated by other forces, including the Ontario Provincial Police. All of them typically deployed multi-engine aircraft flown by two pilots.

The evaluation also found that the RCMP is the only force to restrict flying to weekdays, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., whereas the other five services operate year round, 24 hours a day, every day.

The RCMP created the air service in April 1937 in Moncton, at first using bi-planes. Today, 180 staff run the program with nine helicopters and 21 airplanes, including Cessnas, Twin Otters and the single-engine Pilatus PC 12 aircraft, which makes up the majority of the fleet.

The current total – 30 aircraft – is down one after the April 17, 2023, crash of a Pilatus at the airport in Whitehorse. The pilot, the only person aboard, survived with serious injuries and is still recovering. The cause of the crash remains under investigation by the Transportation Safety Board.

Each aircraft in the fleet is supposed to be retired after 10 years. But the choppers are an average of 19 years old, with the oldest at 24 years, says the report. And the so-called fixed-wing aircraft are 18 years old on average, and one has been flying for 45 years.

The evaluation also cites problems in maintaining staff levels, noting there were 12 pilot vacancies at the time of the review. It says the force needs to “take immediate action” to prevent burnout of staff.

In an accompanying note, RCMP management says it accepts all the findings, and is working on a human-resources and fleet modernization plan by March 2025. A new hours-of-service “charter” is promised for March 2027, though the note does not indicate what the new schedule might be.

RCMP spokesperson Marie-Eve Breton said the Air Services Program, which costs between $30 million and $40 million a year, will move to a 24/7 schedule at strategic locations “as soon as possible,” but did not provide a date or the locations. Breton also said the RCMP has made a funding request to begin the modernization of the fleet.

NOTE: The last paragraph was updated on Dec. 19, 2024, with information provided by an RCMP media relations officer.