TSAMTO, February 15. The Malaysian Air Force received a second pair of Leonardo Group AW-139 helicopters, leased by the government of the country from a private company to temporarily replace the decommissioned S-61 Nuri.
As stated in the press release of the Ministry of Defense of Malaysia, the received helicopters are planned to be operated as part of the 3rd squadron at the Butterworth Air Base. They will replace the S-61 Nuri, which were decommissioned after more than 50 years of operation.
The Defense Security Asia resource previously reported that the first pair of new helicopters from Westar Aviation Services Sdn. Bhd was received on December 4, 2021.
The commander of the Malaysian Air Force, General Akbal Abdul Samad, during the acceptance of the first two helicopters, said that the lease of AW-139 helicopters is based on the concept of "State operation, ownership and maintenance of the company" (GOCOM).
Recall that the Malaysian Air Force expects to purchase an additional 24 multi-purpose military transport helicopters to meet the needs of the security forces, especially in terms of carrying out troop transport operations.
According to the statement of the Commander of the Malaysian Air Force, General Akbal Abdul Samad, to date, the Malaysian Air Force operates only 12 EC-725 multipurpose military transport helicopters to perform such tasks.
Based on current needs, the Air Force needs a total of 36 helicopters of this class (including the existing EC-725). The relevant plans for their purchase (short-term, medium-term and long-term) were sent to the Government.
In the short term, the government approved the lease of four AW-139 helicopters for a period of 4 to 5 years. As for future plans, the Air Force expects to receive another 24 new helicopters in this class: 12 units under the "13th Malaysian Plan for 2026-2030" (RMK-13) and another 12 units under the "14th Malaysian Plan for 2031-2035" (RMK-14).
On the part of the CAMTO, we note that there is no official information about the start of an international tender for the purchase of the Malaysian Air Force of the first batch of 12 multi-purpose transport helicopters with scheduled delivery in 2026-2030.
