Canada will impose significant additional financial penalties on United Technologies Corp’s Sikorsky Aircraft unit for delays in delivering search and rescue helicopters, Reuters reports, citing Public Works Minister Rona Ambrose.
Canada signed a C$5 billion ($5 billion) deal with Stratford-based Sikorsky in 2004 for 28 Cylcone helicopters, the first of which was supposed to be delivered by early 2009.
But the project has been plagued with delays, some of which Sikorsky blamed on major modifications requested by Canada. In December 2008, the deal was renegotiated to push back delivery of the first helicopter to June 2012, but Canada is still waiting.
The affair is the latest in a string of military procurement problems for Canada’s Conservative government. Last December, Ottawa scrapped a sole-source plan to buy F-35 jets from Lockheed Martin Corp. after cost estimates ballooned.
