The helicopters sent by the Andalusian Government to collaborate with the work at DANA return to their bases after two days of sitting idle. Last Wednesday, the president of the Junta de Andalucía, Juan Manuel Moreno, announced from Granada that he had contacted the president of the Generalitat Valenciana, Carlos Mazón, to offer him the necessary means to address the incidents caused by DANA.
During a press appearance in the new laboratories of the San Cecilio Clinical Hospital in the capital of Granada, Moreno revealed that “from the outset” the three high-capacity Super Puma helicopters would move there, which only the Government of Andalusia has in addition to the Army. . These are devices with a large capacity to move both rescue teams and merchandise. They were the ideal vehicle to access areas devastated by floods by air and rescue trapped people or bring them supplies.
That same afternoon, two of those helicopters landed in the Valencian Community, and they had to return home two days later without anyone assigning them any task, as this newspaper has learned.
Positioned since Wednesday afternoon
At 6:05 p.m. on the same Wednesday, the social networks of the Andalusian Forest Fire Extinguishing Service (Infoca) reported that the aircraft were already positioned to work: “With the arrival of the KA-70 at the Mutxamel aerodrome (#Alicante) The two aircraft moved from #Andalusia are now on base, to make themselves available to the #Emergency management in the Valencian Community,” indicated a message in X accompanied by a video.
A KA-40 based in Los Moralillos (Granada) and a KA-70 from Cártama (Málaga) had been able to arrive safely. However, although Moreno had offered the Generalitat three aircraft, the third did not take off: the KA-80 based in Madroñalejos, in Aznalcóllar (Seville), because optimal conditions were not available to guarantee a safe takeoff.
Each of these helicopters can transport up to 19 people (in addition to the pilot and co-pilot). They have the capacity to store 3,500 liters of water, reach up to 277 kilometers per hour and have four hours of flight autonomy.
On Friday, the two who had arrived two days earlier turned around because no one assigned them any tasks in the disaster zone. The reasons, according to what they assure elDiario.es in Valencia, is that the decision was made by the representatives of the fire brigade consortium in the Integrated Operational Coordination Center (Cecopi). According to these sources, it was the firefighters themselves who made the decision for the two helicopters to return home after two days waiting for orders, by not assigning them tasks. Given this situation, the pilots would have decided to take off and return to their bases.
It is true that last Friday the low period came into force in Andalusia of risk of forest fires, so their work on Andalusian soil was not as essential as in the summer, although due to the lack of assigned work they decided to return to where, even at the base, they could be more useful.
The Board requested on several occasions that they be given work
The Infoca Plan depends directly on the Ministry of the Presidency, Interior, Social Dialogue and Administrative Simplification. Sources from this entity tell elDiario.es Andalucia that what was done after Valencia’s claim for help was to respond to it, and even “it was planned that there would be more units, but the weather conditions prevented it.”
The same sources have acknowledged that “the Valencian device did not assign them specific activity” despite the fact that “they were requested on several occasions.” Finally, they point out that “we must take into account that in an emergency, needs change.”
In fact, the Generaltat Valenciana has now requested from the Junta de Andalucía some of the fire engines that it uses in the work of extinguishing forest fires, “and its request has been attended to.”
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