FMT:
Firm in Black Hawk fiasco awarded military airbase calibration job, say sources
3 hours ago
K. Parkaran
Aerotree had its RM187 million Black Hawk lease contract cancelled last year after it failed to deliver despite three postponements
Last November, the defence ministry cancelled a lease of four Sikorsky UH-60A Black Hawk helicopters from Aerotree Defence and Services Sdn Bhd after the company failed to deliver the aircraft. (Aerotree Defence and Services pic)
PETALING JAYA: Questions have been raised over the Royal Malaysian Air Force’s (RMAF) decision to award a new contract to a company which failed to deliver four Sikorsky UH-60A Black Hawk helicopters barely eight months ago.
According to a letter, Aerotree Defence and Services Sdn Bhd was awarded a contract to calibrate the instrument landing system equipment for fixed-wing aircraft at three military air bases recently.
Last November, the defence ministry cancelled a RM187 million Black Hawk lease contract it signed with Aerotree after the company failed to deliver the aircraft despite three date revisions.
The four helicopters, leased for five years, were intended to serve as a platform for the army’s Air Team Nucleus, supporting both training and operational flight missions.
One source expressed “shock” upon learning of the award, barely eight months after the
Black Hawk “fiasco”.
“The defence ministry must explain how this is possible as we understand that another firm was initially awarded the calibration contract but lost it suddenly,” the source told FMT.
FMT is withholding the name of the second company, pending a comment.
Seven months ago, defence minister Khaled Nordin said the government’s deal with Aerotree was called off after the company failed to meet its October delivery deadline.
FMT has reached out to Aerotree CEO Halim Othman and RMAF for comment.
Foreign-registered aircraft and crew
Meanwhile, another source questioned the identity of the aircraft and air crew attending to the calibration of airfields at Labuan, Butterworth and Gong Kedak.
The source also questioned whether Aerotree or the UK-based calibration company were in possession of a Malaysian air operation certificate (AOC) issued by the Civil Aviation Authority of Malaysia (CAAM).
He said RMAF was obliged to clarify the matter, including whether the air crew possess valid work permits to carry out the work in the country.
According to the source, the assurances sought were necessary as the entry and exit of foreigners from Malaysian air bases would pose a security risk.
He claimed the calibration flights started on June 16 and are expected to be completed by today.
According to a letter, Aerotree Defence and Services Sdn Bhd was awarded a contract to calibrate the instrument landing system equipment for fixed-wing aircraft at three military air bases recently.
Last November, the defence ministry cancelled a RM187 million Black Hawk lease contract it signed with Aerotree after the company failed to deliver the aircraft despite three date revisions.
The four helicopters, leased for five years, were intended to serve as a platform for the army’s Air Team Nucleus, supporting both training and operational flight missions.
One source expressed “shock” upon learning of the award, barely eight months after the
Black Hawk “fiasco”.
“The defence ministry must explain how this is possible as we understand that another firm was initially awarded the calibration contract but lost it suddenly,” the source told FMT.
FMT is withholding the name of the second company, pending a comment.
Seven months ago, defence minister Khaled Nordin said the government’s deal with Aerotree was called off after the company failed to meet its October delivery deadline.
FMT has reached out to Aerotree CEO Halim Othman and RMAF for comment.
Foreign-registered aircraft and crew
Meanwhile, another source questioned the identity of the aircraft and air crew attending to the calibration of airfields at Labuan, Butterworth and Gong Kedak.
The source also questioned whether Aerotree or the UK-based calibration company were in possession of a Malaysian air operation certificate (AOC) issued by the Civil Aviation Authority of Malaysia (CAAM).
He said RMAF was obliged to clarify the matter, including whether the air crew possess valid work permits to carry out the work in the country.
According to the source, the assurances sought were necessary as the entry and exit of foreigners from Malaysian air bases would pose a security risk.
He claimed the calibration flights started on June 16 and are expected to be completed by today.
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kt comments:
Uniformed division of RMAF has nothing to do with award of contracts - check the civilian civil servants. Seems Aerotree has VERY strong cables, wakakaka - Malaysia Bolih lah!
On another note...
ReplyDelete~~~
The AIpocalypse is here for websites as search referrals plunge
Turn out the lights, the internet is over
Google AI Overviews and other AI search services appear to be starving the hand that fed them.
Google's AI-generated summaries of web pages, officially released in May 2024, show up atop its search results pages so search users don't have to click through to the source website.
A year later, enterprise AI analytics biz BrightEdge reported that Google AI Overviews had generated more search impressions (up 49 percent), but click-throughs to the actual websites dropped 30 percent.
That means AI Overviews is leading more people to use Google Search to find answers to their queries. But those people are less likely to follow search results links that lead to the source website. Good for Google. Terrible for the ecosystem of websites that had learned to depend on search referrals for buyers, readers, and viewers.
Kevin Indig, who writes about search engine optimization (SEO), marked the one-year anniversary of AI Overviews with a usability study. Based on data from the 70 individuals surveyed, he observed that when AI Overviews are absent, "outbound click rates rise to an average of 28 percent on desktop and 38 percent on mobile."
Ahrefs, an SEO site, in April said AI Overviews reduced clicks by about 35 percent.
Citing data provided by SimilarWeb (which SimilarWeb shared with El Reg, Barron's last week reported that search referrals to top US travel and tourism have fallen 20 percent year on year, while news and media sites saw search-driven traffic drop by 17 percent during that period.
Other categories of website also showed declining search referral traffic: e-commerce (-9 percent); finance (-7 percent); food/drink (- 7 percent); and lifestyle/fashion (-5 percent).
Meanwhile, AI search engine referrals have replaced only about 10 percent of traditional search referral traffic, according to SimilarWeb.
While the stats vary depending on who's measuring, the story is consistent: web publishers, who provided the content that trained these AI models, face dramatically diminishing visitors, which means lower advertising and subscription revenues, even amid overall growth in search impressions.
This may help explain the lawsuits web publishers have filed against AI firms.
https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/22/ai_search_starves_publishers/
Insanity is repeating the same failed decisions.
ReplyDeleteBlack Hawk Down
ReplyDelete