Rescue vehicle plagued by problems
By Jim Dooley
Advertiser Staff Writer
A $70,000 "command vehicle" purchased by the state three years ago for airport fire and rescue emergencies has never worked properly because of electrical problems, but the state still plans to fix the vehicle, officials said.
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser
"There was some discussion over using the state's lemon law to get our money back but that won't work," said Ben Schlapak, airport operations manager.
State fire Capt. Geoffrey Tavares of the Kalaeloa Airport fire station checks the back of the mobile command center vehicle purchased three years ago for $70,000. The vehicle has never worked properly.
The command vehicle has been plagued by electric problems and still needs new wiring in the back.
The vehicle is in use at the state's general aviation airfield at Kalaeloa, but the computer and communications gear that's supposed to be in the back of the truck has not been installed because of wiring problems, officials said.
The idea is to have a mobile vehicle at an airport emergency or disaster that is capable of communicating with a variety of agencies and coordinating their responses.
Hickam Air Force Base has such a vehicle; the state vehicle was patterned after it, Kalaeloa Fire Chief Duane Lam Ho said.
Jeremy Hew, automotive maintenance supervisor for the state airports division, said the vehicle was purchased through Cutter Chevrolet-Mitsubishi and assembled on the Mainland according to specifications provided by airport firefighter-rescue personnel here.
Hew said standard airport operating procedure requires that newly acquired vehicles be inspected by the automotive division before the state accepts and pays for the vehicles.
The command vehicle was "never inspected or accepted" by the automotive division when it was delivered, Hew said.
There were a variety of problems with the vehicle when it was delivered, Hew said.
For example, the battery was draining and the air-conditioning wouldn't run because the alternator was too small.
"It hasn't worked from the time it was delivered to now," Hew said. "We took it how many times to the dealer, but they couldn't find the problem. When it was out of warranty we took it to DC Electric and they found the problem with the front end and fixed it, but the back end needs to be rewired," Hew said.
The initial repair cost nearly $1,000 and the remaining work is estimated to cost $5,000.
Chief Lam Ho said the command vehicle purchase was coordinated by Assistant Chief Peter Phillips at Honolulu International Airport Fire Station One.
Attempts to reach Phillips for comment were unsuccessful. Phillips signed all paperwork when the vehicle was delivered to the state in July 2000.
The vehicle is reminiscent of two other expensive pieces of equipment purchased by the state in recent years that also never worked properly.
One, a $156,000 pothole patching machine purchased in 2001, never worked because it required a special kind of asphalt mix unavailable on O'ahu. The state said this month it planned to try to sell the vehicle on the Mainland.
Another, a floating apparatus called the "Mog" intended to clean debris from the Ala Wai Canal, cost taxpayers $219,000 but never worked properly because of stability problems and because it was too big to fit under two bridges spanning the canal, except at low tide.
Reach Jim Dooley at jdooley@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-2447.
Correction: Capt. Geoffrey Tavares was misidentified in a caption with a previous version of this story.
