An Update On Cyclone

Noah Note

Oh the Cyclone.

I feel like everytime we get past them, and things seem quiet, something happens to the fleet that makes us have to revisit it again and again. It, from my perspective, becomes a bit concerning at times that one fleet constantly seems to have issues to follow up on.

Of course, for those of you who don't know, on October 26th there was an incident involving an CH-148 at HMCS Discovery that, in a very rare instance, was captured on video by a third party and published around social media on Thursday. I have included the video for you to see yourself:

Usually I avoid investigative stuff here, chosing to leave that to others whom we believe are better equipped to handle these kinds of things. My friend, Chris Lambie, actually beat me to this one by publishing his own piece earlier today about the incident, which I very much recommend you go out and read for yourself.

Nevertheless, we decided to reach out to the DND ourselves to ask about this Incident, and others that have reportedly hit the Cyclone fleet over the last few weeks. Like Chris, we also received a response yesterday that matched his. I have included the direct quote:

“On the afternoon of Oct. 26, a Royal Canadian Air Force CH-148 Cyclone helicopter experienced a loss of power during takeoff at HMCS Discovery in Vancouver. The aircraft landed safely, with no injuries.

A maintenance team from 443 Squadron was sent to examine the aircraft, and 12 Wing is working with experts at the Royal Canadian Air Force, the Assistant Deputy Minister (Material), and Sikorsky to understand what happened.

As a precaution, 12 Wing temporarily suspended flying operations at the Wing. However, after additional analysis, it has been determined that the loss of power is not indicative of a fleet-wide problem, and accordingly, the fleet has been cleared to resume flying.

The incident is being investigated by the Royal Canadian Air Force’s Directorate of Flight Safety.”

To disclose, we followed up with DND today and are awaiting a response. At this time there is no word on what caused the loss of power, whether one or both engines were affected, whether the engine was damaged, or how long flying was suspended. DND also hasn't said what its "additional analysis" found, beyond ruling out a fleet-wide problem.

This also isn't the only incident related to the Cyclone fleet that has happened over the last few weeks. Another Incident involving a Cyclone helicopter also took place on October 6th off the Coast of Norway.

We had previously heard about this accident several days ago, and luckily for us the initial FTI report regarding this particular accident was release yesterday, along with accompanying photos of the damage.

Of course an FTI is not an FSIR, and information at this time is limited, but it still provides us at least a basic picture to what happened. If you want the link yourself, you can find it here:

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Type: Cyclone CH148813

Location: Norwegian Sea

Date: 6 October 2026

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The accident occurred during a night flight involving Cyclone CH148813, callsign AVALANCHE, operating from the HMCS Ville de Québec in support of Operation REASSURANCE. Four crewmembers were on board.

The night flight consisted of multiple phases, with the accident occurring during the final landing sequence. At the time of landing, the ship’s flight deck motion was within established helicopter night landing limits.

The helicopter landed in the Helicopter Hauldown and Rapid Securing Device, commonly known as the “Beartrap”, and was secured to the flight deck. During touchdown, two main rotor blades struck the tail boom, severing multiple components, including the section 5 tail rotor drive shaft.

An emergency engine shutdown and crew egress was subsequently carried out.

There were no injuries to the crew members, however the helicopter sustained very serious damage.

While no technical issues have been identified to date, the investigation remains ongoing and continues to focus on materiel & systems, environmental and human factors.

In simple terms, the main rotor blades came down far enough to strike the helicopter's own tail. That cut the drive shaft powering the tail rotor, which is what keeps the aircraft from spinning. Because they were already on the deck and secured in the Beartrap, the crew was able to shut down and get out safely.

It’s also not the first time this has happened. A similar incident occurred in 2019, when CH148824’s main rotor blades struck its tail while landing on Asterix near Hawaii. Then-Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Jonathan Vance later chalked it up to an unusual gust of wind. This time, interestingly, the RCAF made a point of telling us the deck wasn’t moving outside its limits.

I should note that this is all compounding at a very tight time. Several Cyclones are entering their 1,200-hour inspections by year’s end, and an airframe in long-term repair plus a wing-wide flying pause in the same month is absolutely the last thing we need.

Keep in mind, it has absolutely not been the Cyclone’s year, or last year for that matter. Obviously, we had the fleet-wide grounding last year over concerns that spare parts were being used past their service life, a problem made worse by the fleet’s chronic parts shortage.

As we first reported last year, the fleet’s Link 11 was deprecated in early 2025, and Lockheed Martin was reportedly asking roughly $20 million per aircraft to integrate new datalinks, with the process expected to take two to three years. Keep in mind, Link 11’s sunset date was December 31, 2024, and this issue has been flagged internally since at least 2023, yet no replacement has been fielded.

Without it, and without Link 16, the fleet has no modern datalink of its own, severely limiting how it can share data with the rest of the CAF and our allies. Only seven Cyclones were in the final Block 2.1 configuration as of last year, with the rest due by March 2027, and FOC for the fleet has been pushed back to 2029.

AND TO TOP IT OFF, WE HAVE LOCKHEED’S Q3 REPORTING, which also dropped this week with an update on the maritime helicopter program.

To give the update, Lockheed’s cumulative losses on the program are unchanged at approximately US$670 million, $360 million of which is still accrued as a liability. Contract assets now sit at about $565 million, down from about $585 million last quarter.

The report also confirms Lockheed is still in discussions with the feds to restructure the contract’s terms, and once again warns those talks may be prolonged or unsuccessful, and could result in a contract termination.

Notably, Lockheed says the outcome depends partly on factors outside its control, including Canadian government priorities and “trade relations with the United States.” Of course, we have been reporting since last year that Lockheed has been pushing the federal government to shift over to Seahawk Romeos. In fact, we talk about it about once every three weeks on average.

We have obviously discussed the Seahawk a lot, and as far as I know, there is still a push for it. We currently have the Maritime Helicopter Upgrade project on the books, which is investigating what the future of the fleet should look like. As I understand it, that is still in the early stages, though it could be accelerated if the federal government decides to ditch the fleet.

It’s… been a lot this year, honestly. As I said in the Q&A last month, and I’ll repeat it here: I fear there is no fixing this. I am hopeful about a lot of things. You all know I hate being overly blunt and negative. That isn’t what I like to do here. I like debate, and I like to keep things open.

I don’t feel there’s a path forward here. No one, I believe, still thinks the Cyclone is anything but a failure. Across industry, the CAF and government, no one benefits from the Cyclone; it is the ultimate loser. Even when it is available, we lose critical capabilities because the platform is outdated, to the point that modernization is likely to be a billion-plus initiative across the fleet.

The government keeps wasting money on a bespoke, orphaned platform that will never have the investment and supply chain backing to keep it modern and properly supported. That cost often falls on us, and in some cases we accept it to support domestic industry. But in the current context, that support isn’t building industry the way the Seahawk could.

We really need to accept that no one is benefiting from the Cyclone. Lockheed is bleeding money on it. The RCN has no reliable maritime helicopter and is resorting to sonobuoys on Hammerheads to fill the gaps. We don’t even pretend anymore that it’s salvageable. The few who do benefit, Tier II and Tier III suppliers, would benefit more from competing within an international pool of users, as has almost always been the Canadian case, and at this point it doesn’t matter what replaces it.

We try and try and try, and we never get where we need to be; we likely never will. We’ll be constantly chasing everyone else and the next critical upgrade, as everyone wastes money and time trying to fix something that never should have existed in the first place.

How many more incidents like this do we need to see? How many hundreds of millions spent on an aircraft that won’t reach FOC until a quarter-century after the original contract was signed, on a platform whose life expectancy only runs to 2043? Does any of this make sense? No. I refuse to believe it does. I refuse to believe that this is the best plan, the best strategy we have.

Until everyone accepts that? We can’t move forward. That is the first step that needs to happen: accepting that no one is better off with the Cyclone, and accepting that it is not what we need. We tried; it tried. It isn’t the Cyclone’s fault; it isn’t anyone’s sole fault. Maybe Chrétien, if you want to put blame on anyone, but man, we’re so far past that now…

I’m done blaming people and chasing fault. That doesn’t help anymore; it isn’t worth it anymore. I just want the Cyclone to have a nice, quiet retirement. Put them in museums somewhere; send them to Ottawa or Hamilton. Let them be pretty and enjoy the rest.