[Anchor]

Starting with an exhaustive analysis of this year's budget bill, we have been running a series of reports examining whether the public's tax money is being properly spent. Today (September 16), we take a look at the Korea Forest Service's project to introduce ultra-large wildfire-fighting helicopters. Spanning a period of seven years, the project involves introducing a total of seven aircraft with a budget exceeding 320 billion won. While the first ultra-large helicopter was brought in early this year, it remains unclear whether it could actually be deployed to the field if a massive wildfire were to break out tomorrow.

What exactly is the problem? Reporter Bae Yeo-un first investigated the issue.

[Reporter Bae Yeo-un]

This helicopter, bearing the clear logo of the Korea Forest Service, was heavily promoted by the agency back in January during an unveiling ceremony, where officials touted it as a major asset for fighting wildfires.

However, do you see the aircraft's unique registration number on the tail starting with the letter "N"?

It means it is a U.S. helicopter.

Four years after the project began, it arrived as the first helicopter and is currently housed in a Korea Forest Service hangar, but it is not actually a Korea Forest Service helicopter.

Our pilots cannot fly it, nor can our mechanics touch it.

A Korea Forest Service working-level official in charge of the contract even wrote the following on their personal social media account:

"I signed the contract, but it's a Korea Forest Service helicopter that isn't really ours."

Why did this situation happen?

The Korea Forest Service signed a contract with a U.S. company for its first helicopter in December 2022, under the condition that both the airframe and major parts would be 100% brand new and delivered by the end of December 2025.

However, in March of last year, the company requested a contract modification.

This came two years and three months after the contract was signed, with only nine months left until delivery.

The company acknowledged its fault, stating that it was "difficult to produce the originally contracted model" and that "the initial proposal was unrealistic."

Instead, it proposed changing the model to one created by disassembling a U.S. military helicopter from the 1980s and retrofitting it for wildfire suppression.

After agonising over the decision, the Korea Forest Service abruptly accepted the company's request just two months before the delivery deadline.

[Kim Man-ju / Head of the Korea Forest Aviation Headquarters: There is virtually no other alternative for aircraft with a capacity of over 8,000 liters, as the Chinook (the contracted model) is the only large helicopter available.]

The price was lowered by about 10% to approximately 36.3 billion won, and the delivery deadline was extended by a year and a half to June of next year.

This dealt a blow to helicopter deployment plans for the wildfire season this past spring.

The Korea Forest Service had no choice but to hastily arrange to receive temporary helicopters from the company.

This is precisely that helicopter sitting in the Forest Service hangar, which we are not allowed to pilot.

The company provided the helicopters free of charge for this spring and next spring, along with dispatching pilots and maintenance personnel.

However, once the wildfire season ended this spring, all of the U.S. personnel returned to their home country.

In the event of an immediate large-scale wildfire, Forest Service personnel alone cannot get this helicopter off the ground.

There is another problem.

Under the contract, the company should have had to pay penalties for missing the delivery deadline, but it has been confirmed that no such penalties were paid.

[Kang Doo-won / Lawyer: Extending the delivery deadline by a year and a half effectively has the same impact as entirely exempting them from late-payment penalties, so that part certainly seems a bit excessive.]

The Korea Forest Service explained that the contract was modified before any delay penalties accrued, denying that it granted any exemptions or special favors.

(Photo: Yonhap News / Video Reported by Seol Min-hwan | Video Edited by Lee Hong-myung | Design by Park Tae-young, Lee Jun-ho | PD: Kim Do-gyun, Han Seung-ho | XR: Choi Jae-young, Park 천웅 [Park Chun-woong] | VJ: Kim Jun-ho | Materials provided by the office of Representative Yoon Jun-byeong | Footage provided by Columbia Helicopters YouTube channel | YouTube and social media sources: Jaseom Young-gu, Jirisan Sancheong Sal-i, Bichawa Naltle, Film Master)

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[Anchor]

Because the agency decided to accept an old military helicopter instead of a brand new one, and because the delivery deadline was pushed back by a year and a half, a gap has formed in wildfire suppression capabilities. You might think this is an issue that will be resolved in a year and a half, but our reporting revealed that the situation is far from simple. The issue of certification, which is most crucial for aviation safety and flight operations, remains unresolved.

Reporter Lee Hyun-jung takes a closer look in the following report.

[Reporter Lee Hyun-jung]

Just as cars must meet safety standards before being allowed on the road, helicopters must complete certification before they can fly.

In particular, when a military helicopter is converted for civilian wildfire suppression, it must go through a separate and rigorous certification process to ensure it can fly safely.

The new helicopter originally proposed by the U.S. company was already a certified model.

However, with the switch to a military-converted aircraft, a brand-new certification process became necessary.

[Choi Yong-hoon / Head of the Aviation Certification Division at the Korea Institute of Aviation Safety Technology: You can think of certification as the bare minimum starting point for safety. Because airworthiness certification requires verifying both the design and manufacturing status, an aircraft ultimately cannot fly if it fails to receive it.]

Yet, when the company requested the contract modification from the Korea Forest Service, it conveniently omitted this critical "certification risk."

During a Korea Forest Service meeting last July to evaluate the validity of the contract change, when an external committee member asked about the outlook for certification, the official in charge simply relayed the company's bold assurance: "We plan to obtain Federal Aviation Administration certification in November and complete domestic procedures in December."

[External Committee Member of the Korea Forest Service Review Committee (University Professor): Both the Korea Forest Service and Columbia (the U.S. company) insisted that "they have their own experience and there will be no problem getting certified." As an advisory committee member, I was worried about those aspects, but...]

However, when our reporting team filed a public disclosure request with the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the response came back: "We have never received an application for certification regarding that model."

The certification issue, which should have been wrapped up late last year and can take several years, remains unresolved to this day.

[Kang Doo-won / Lawyer: If they presented that they could receive all approvals and certifications from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, but that was ultimately not complied with, then fundamentally that is naturally the fault of the manufacturer.]

The Korea Forest Service failed to even properly ascertain whether a certification application had been filed.

Certification is a decisive issue that determines whether a helicopter can fly or not, and it was a matter that should have been verified above all else when changing the contract.

In fact, the Gyeongsangbuk-do Provincial Government and the Korea National Park Service, which had explored acquiring helicopters from the same U.S. company around the same time, dropped their projects after concluding that the uncertainty surrounding certification was too high.

This casual handling of certification was also evident during the consultation process among government agencies.

Before modifying the contract, the Korea Forest Service underwent preliminary legal reviews by the Board of Audit and Inspection and the Ministry of Economy and Finance. However, it was confirmed that the agency did not bring up the certification issue and instead explained the contract modification as being due to "force majeure" reasons.

Following SBS's reporting, the Korea Forest Service stated, "We modified the contract because we judged that there were no alternatives to prevent gaps in wildfire suppression other than converting a military helicopter," adding, "We will review plans to secure alternative helicopters in preparation for potential project delays such as certification issues."

(Photo: Yonhap News / Video Reported by Seol Min-hwan | Video Edited by Yoon Tae-ho | Design by Park Tae-young | PD: Kim Do-gyun, Han Seung-ho | XR: Lee Jun-ho | VJ: Kim Jun-ho | Footage provided by Columbia Helicopters YouTube channel | YouTube and social media sources: Jaseom Young-gu, Jirisan Sancheong Sal-i, Bichawa Naltle, Film Master)