60 Minutes Australia

The Menace of the Taipans, Wonky Wonka (2024x12)

Air date: Apr 21, 2024

They look mightily impressive. They're relatively young. And they've cost more than three-and-a-half billion dollars to buy and operate. According to the top brass at the Defence Department though, Australia's 46 MRH-90 Taipan helicopters are useless junk. Others say that they're dangerous, as the country tragically saw last July when one crashed near Hamilton Island killing four Australian airmen from the 6th Aviation Regiment. It seems no surprise then that the helicopters have been taken out of service, and as the story goes, are about to be dumped in a great big hole at a secret Defence location. But what if it turns out that these machines aren't as bad as we're being told? In a special report for 60 Minutes, Andrew Probyn, the National Affairs Editor for 9News, investigates the very real possibility that there's another reason for the terrible accident, and it's one that has nothing to do with the reliability, or otherwise, of the MRH-90.