Surion Flights Completely Halted... Emergency Safety Inspections

Horizontal Stabilizer Detachment Incident on Fire Department Helicopter
Flights of About 200 Surion Helicopters to Resume Sequentially After Safety Inspections

All flights of the domestically developed Surion utility helicopter operated by the military have been completely suspended. This is to conduct an emergency safety inspection after a Surion helicopter operated by the Gyeongnam Fire Department lost its horizontal stabilizer in mid-flight on the 10th and had to make a precautionary landing.

According to the military on the 12th, after the accident involving the Surion helicopter belonging to the Gyeongnam Fire Department, it decided to carry out inspections on all Surion-series helicopters operated by the armed forces.

The horizontal stabilizer is a part of the helicopter’s tail section and serves to keep the aircraft balanced during flight. It is known that our military currently operates about 200 Surion-series helicopters.

Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI), the manufacturer, has dispatched technical personnel on an emergency basis to support the safety inspections of the military’s Surion helicopters, and the military plans to gradually resume flights of those helicopters that are confirmed to have no safety issues.

The Surion is the first domestically developed utility helicopter, with development starting in 2006, and it has been deployed in the Army for actual operations since 2012. It is 19 meters long and 4.5 meters high, with a maximum speed of 272 km/h, and is assessed to have performance on par with or superior to the UH-60 Black Hawk, the U.S. military’s representative utility helicopter.

The Surion has been developed and is operated not only for military troop and cargo transport, but also as a multi-purpose utility helicopter such as the Marineon amphibious assault helicopter and the Medeon medical evacuation helicopter. It is also used by the police and fire authorities as a government helicopter for law enforcement, wildfire suppression, and search and rescue operations.

Currently, the Surion fleet numbers around 200 aircraft, and more than 300 Surion helicopters are scheduled to be deployed domestically by 2030. Following the crash of an AH-1S (Cobra) attack helicopter on the 9th, the military has also suspended all flights of its approximately 60 Cobra helicopters.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.