The Ministry of Defence (MinDef) on December 19 signed the certificate of customer acceptance test for the first C295MW aircraft under the air transport project on December 19 with Major (U) Arif Shamirul bin Salleh, Royal Brunei Air Force (RBAirF), as Head of Resident Project Office for the project, signing on behalf of MinDef and Programme Manager Pablo Alvaro Ramos Ruiz representing Airbus Defence and Space SAU, Spain.
The aircraft key was presented to Commander of the RBAirF Brigadier General (U) Dato Seri Pahlawan Mohd Sharif bin Dato Paduka Haji Ibrahim to mark the milestone.
Minister at the Prime Minister’s Office and Minister of Defence II Pehin Datu Lailaraja Major General (Rtd) Dato Paduka Seri Haji Awang Halbi bin Haji Mohd Yussof and Commander of the Royal Brunei Armed Forces Major General Dato Paduka Seri Haji Muhammad Haszaimi bin Bol Hassan and RBAirF acceptance team members witnessed the ceremony at the Airbus Defence and Space San Pablo, Seville, Spain.
The customer acceptance test is part of the acceptance requirements to be conducted before the aircraft is flown to Brunei for delivery in January 2024.
Upon arrival in the Sultanate, a site acceptance test will be performed and the aircraft’s title will be transferred to the MinDef.
The signing was the first out of two in the near future, with the second aircraft to undergo its customer acceptance test in Seville in January 2024. Both aircraft are scheduled to be flown and delivered together to Brunei in January 2024.
The air transport project contract was signed between the MinDef on behalf of the Government of His Majesty Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu’izzaddin Waddaulah ibni Al-Marhum Sultan Haji Omar ‘Ali Saifuddien Sa’adul Khairi Waddien, Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam and Airbus Defence and Space SAU on December 2, 2022 for the delivery of four C295MW Air Transport fleet.
This is to replace the ageing CN235-110M aircraft of the RBAirF, perform missions including Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) operations, MEDEVAC (Medical Evacuations), NEO (Non-combatant Evacuation Operations) and SAR (Search and Rescue operations).
The aircraft is also configurable to perform various roles such as troop and cargo transport, VIP transport, freefall, airborne static jumps and cargo drops.
