Are firefighting copters safe to fly?

Questions raised over helicopters leased by the government and the role of forestry department officials in their selection

Three forestry department (FD) functionaries – suspended amid a police probe into dodgy procurement practices – were reportedly involved in designing the specifications of several tenders, including even one for leasing firefighting helicopters as recently as this year. Eventually this tender was scrapped after objections from rival companies, but it’s only the latest in a long-running series of troublesome procurements at the department.

The sprawling criminal investigation – headed up by the CID – is ongoing, so police will not comment. No charges have been filed as of yet. What is known is that detectives are trawling through volumes of documents – including public tenders handled by the FD – dating back several years, and have searched the homes and offices of persons of interest in the probe.

The police investigation followed a formal complaint made to Agriculture Minister Maria Panayiotou by a company that had bid for leasing firefighting helicopters to the FD but did not land the contract. The FD comes under the agriculture ministry.

The complainant alleged that an official, or officials, at the FD finessed procedures to favour a specific bidder, namely, the firm that secured six controversial contracts between 2018 and 2024.

In late January of this year, the agriculture ministry completed its administrative review, covering the period from 2017 to 2024 – that is, up until the time the review was ordered. It then forwarded its findings to the attorney-general, which instructed police to launch a criminal investigation.

The police probe essentially relates to corruption and conflict of interest. According to media, one of the more serious revelations is that a first-degree relative of an FD official was reportedly an officer in a company linked to the winning bidder in three multi-million-euro tenders.

According to police sources, the same official was involved in the evaluation committee for each of these tenders.

Although the name of the functionary is widely known in media circles, it cannot be published for legal reasons – the individual has not been officially named as a suspect or charged.

The offences under scrutiny include bribery, abuse of power, corruption and illicit earnings by public servants, charges that carry sentences of up to seven years in prison if proven in a court of law.

Police are said to be investigating eight suspects, four individuals and four companies. Among the individuals are three FD officials and one corporate director.

The Cyprus Mail understands that some of the contracts under scrutiny relate to the leasing of Russian-made Kamov helicopters, over and over again throughout the years, either from the same company or from a collaboration between this and another company. The entity in question is Air Taurus, sometimes working with EFA Ventures.

Despite this, as recently as this year the government again awarded Air Taurus a contract for two firefighting Kamov helicopters. And according to the Cyprus Times, which ran an expose in April, the FD officials who are among the subjects of the police investigation had played a part in designing this very tender.

The tender in question was officially handled by the Treasury, which was keen to sign off to Air Taurus despite a number of questions having been raised. Even though the FD was not formally involved, behind the scenes it was pressing the Treasury to award the contract quickly as the fire season (May) neared and the Department of Meteorology was forecasting a hot and dry summer.

Some context here: as of April 2025 the FD is no longer the competent authority for the procurement of aerial firefighting means. The defence ministry has taken over as the contracting authority, with the National Guard in charge of operational matters.

However, due to its prior expertise, the FD continues to provide input when it comes to the procurement of aerial firefighting means. This was confirmed by director of the department Savvas Ezekiel, who said they still give “some assistance” in these procedures.

Ezekiel said Cyprus currently avails of ten firefighting aircraft: six planes and four helicopters.

Two of the planes are Jordanian, stationed permanently here via an interstate agreement between Jordan and Cyprus. The four other planes are leases. All four of the helicopters are likewise leased.

Asked whether this fleet meets the island’s firefighting needs, the official said yes.

The government meanwhile has plans to acquire self-owned firefighting aircraft over a span of years, gradually ending the reliance on leases.

Back to the €14.2 million contract awarded to Air Taurus: following objections raised by other bidders, the multi-year tender was scrapped. It’s understood that the whole affair is bogged down in legal wrangling, after Air Taurus itself challenged the objections of the other bidders.

However, this particular tender does not fall under the scope of the police probe.

Nevertheless, documents seen by the Cyprus Times relating to this tender reveal a host of problems with the selection of Kamov helicopters – a pattern likely repeating over years.

For starters, the helicopters were manufactured in Russia, posing clear issues with maintenance and spare parts, as the Russian Federation is under EU sanctions over the armed conflict in Ukraine.

But there’s a great deal more. The two helicopters in question have the call signs UR-CSM and UR-CSN. The documents show that during the tendering process, the submitted logbooks for the helicopters were in the Russian language only and not accompanied by a certified translation into English. This breached the terms of the tender, and should have disqualified the bidder from the outset.

Further, the submitted logs did not document the remaining operating time of the helicopters. The same applied to key components of the aircraft – such as the rotor blades – raising serious airworthiness and safety questions.

In addition, Air Taurus – a Ukrainian company – provided inadequate documentation relating to maintenance history. No information was given showing that the two helicopters were subject to an approved maintenance organisation of a member state of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) or even subject to Ukraine’s civil aviation authority – again, in clear violation of the terms of the tender.

Plus, the technical inspections cited in the logs were accompanied only by a simple signature, without identifying the persons signing.

Air Taurus submitted two documents purporting to show that the helicopters were not involved in any accidents. One of the documents was signed by another Ukrainian outfit stating that the two aircraft were not involved in accidents over the past five years. The second similar document, purportedly issued by Ukraine’s civil aviation, bore no signature.

All this raised questions about the very authenticity of the documents furnished.

It got worse: the submitted health certificates for the aircraft crew – pilots and flight engineers – left a lot to be desired. For seven of the 15 crew, their health certificates exceeded the validity period stipulated by both ICAO and EASA (European Union Aviation Safety Agency) regulations.

These regulations mandate that health certificates must be valid for 12 months only for pilots, after which they must be renewed. But for some of the pilots listed in the Air Taurus tender documents, the certificates were valid for 13 or 14 months.

Beyond the Air Taurus contracts, a reader has contacted the Cyprus Mail directing our attention to another problematic tender. This concerns the tender FD 45/2024, the contract having been awarded in July last year to Avsac Ltd, a Cyprus-registered company acting as the local representative for a Slovak entity by the name of Heli Company S.R.O.

The tender was for the wet leasing of two UH-60 Sikorsky helicopters and crew. Avsac’s was the lowest bid at €796,000.

Being an ‘urgent negotiated procedure’, the tender covered the period of one month. It turned out that one of the two helicopters – call sign OM-BHK – had been previously presented in Italy for its firefighting prowess. But in May 2024 Italian civil aviation gave it the thumbs-down after an inspection, as it did not meet all ICAO airworthiness standards.

A document provided to us shows that the helicopter’s airworthiness certificate was valid only in Slovakia.

Apparently, the helicopter was then granted a one-time permit to fly out of Italy. Both helicopters arrived in Cyprus in early July.

Documents available online show the FD’s evaluation committee carried out three back-to-back sessions before finally approving the award of the contract to Avsac.