One of Brintel’s two helicopters is ?on the blink? again today as it breaks down for the umpteenth time this season. On 27 July we reported that the helicopter was having technical difficulties, now 16 days later, it has broken down again.
To make matters more stressful, the Steamship Company’s Scillonian III has broken down. This means, as well as diverting most ferry passengers to the SkyBus, the helicopter will not be able to offload some of it’s passengers to the boat.
It is unknown whether the Scillonian will sail at all today, but it may make a late sailing.
It will be a busy day for all today - fixing the Scillonian and helicopter, and SkyBus having to cope with more passengers.
Brintel were going to buy new helicopters, the EH-101 being the favourite, but calculated that they would have to increase their return ticket prices from just over ?100 to around ?150.
Steve Watt, head of Island tourism said: “They will be flying the Sikorsky until they run out of spares and cannot get CAA safety certificates I suspect.”
But with one of the helicopters causing a lot of problems this season, will it be long before they run out of spares?
Brintel’s FJ landed at St Mary’s at 1700hrs, so it is assumed that it is EB with the problem.