New Delhi, July 8
Over $1-billion Indian naval deal for 16 multi-role helicopters is being dragged into a controversy by a European consortium by taking an unusual step of “directly writing” to Defence Minister AK Antony sometime back against its American rival.

Before that, it also wrote to the Defence Secretary in December 2011. The defence and naval authorities are reportedly upset over these “letter missiles”. The mega deal (TM (M)/0025/MRH/9918) is at the final stage. Tenders are likely to be opened soon.

The NATO Helicopter Industries (NHI) — the European consortium of France, German, Italy, Spain, Finland and Australia firms — has questioned the claims of the rival American firm Sikorsky, known for making Black Hawk and Seahawk gun ships.

Sikorsky is a part of the United Technologies Corporation, which was named the “most admired” aerospace and defence company (2011, Fortune).

The NHI is pushing its NH90 helicopter. Sikorsky has offered Black Hawk’s naval variant “Seahawk” helicopter S-70B.

In its letter to Antony, the NHI has raised “doubts” over the Navy’s technical evaluation process alleging that it has reportedly “cleared” Sikorsky S-70B helicopter on several counts “despite its shortcomings in many required fields”. The NHI has charged that “Sikorsky has made doubtful claims about its machine’s compliance”.

The Tribune has accessed the copy of a confidential letter written to Defence Minister AK Antony by NHI’s managing director D Vaccari, who has claimed that Sikorsky’s S-70B helicopter could not have cleared the recently concluded field evaluation trials, at least, in eight specific areas, had the naval staff requirements been strictly examined and adhered to. The specific areas are mainly related to mandatory features like the flight-control system, internal and external fuel tanks, deck-lock system and fuel reserve.

The NHI claims that it wrote to Antony as it did not receive any response to an earlier letter sent by its senior vice-president G Saponaro to Defence Secretary SK Sharma on December 15, 2011.

The NHI has also tried to “link” the deal with the US naval commandoes’ operation in Abbottabad, 60 miles north of Islamabad, to kill Al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden in May 2011. One of the Black Hawk helicopters, while hovering over the sprawling complex where Laden was hiding, had crashed.

As Black Hawk and Seahawk have many “common features”, the European consortium has drawn Antony’s attention to the NASA Report 1374, which linked the loss of five Black Hawk variant aircraft to failures in the stabilator-control system.

When this correspondent contacted Seahawk manufacturer for a reaction on the NHI allegations, Subir Moitra, director, communications, United Technologies Corporation, India, e-mailed back to say: “We had a discussion internally...We have decided not to make any comment on this matter.”

Sources familiar with the global functioning of the UTC-Sikorsky, said as a policy, they do not comment on competitor-related issues as they believe that it is against their code of ethics and that they believe in buyer country’s technical evaluation and procurement process.