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President Joe Biden's first flight on the new $217 million presidential helicopter has been delayed because the Pentagon deemed the aircraft unreliable in an emergency and not 'operationally suitable.'
The VH-92 helicopter program is a $5 billion project to build 23 aircraft replacing the aging fleet used by the president and other senior officials.
Lockheed Martin won the contract in 2014 after other aircraft makers dropped out.
The new presidential helicopter - with the call sign Marine One when carrying the president - was expected to be ready in July.
But on Tuesday, Bloomberg News reported that a testing report in September found it was 'failing to meet the reliability, availability or maintainability threshold requirements' set for it.
The Pentagon testing office found that its communications system did not 'adequately support timely, continuous and secure communications,' and tended to delay critical communications at the start of emergency missions.
A US Marine Corps VH-92 helicopter takes off from the White House lawn in June 2019. It was supposed to enter service a year later but now a new report reveals it is not yet 'operationally suitable' and its communications system was not reliable in emergency situations
The VH-92A will accommodate up to 19 passengers when it enters service, and needs only two crew, compared to the four needed for the VH-3D, which has flown
