A group of low-flying helicopters caused unrest on the farm of Dirk de Graaf from Fluitenberg this morning. Fifteen of his young pregnant cows and one bull panicked, broke out and destroyed several posts. To the farmer’s frustration, it was not possible to submit a complaint to the Ministry of Defense by telephone.
At least six helicopters flew about twenty meters above the De Graaf site. “The animals panicked completely and broke out of their enclosure. A little further on they came to an iron gate that they ran into so hard that it was all dented,” says the farmer from Fluitenberg. “This is not only impressive for the animals, but also for me.”
Later in the day calm returned to the cows and there appeared to be no permanent damage. Because the fifteen cows are all pregnant, De Graaf hopes that his cattle will not be hindered by this impact during the gestation period.
De Graaf is not even concerned about the damage, but he is mainly annoyed by the inaccessibility of the noise reporting center at the Ministry of Defense. “Defense doesn’t respond at all.” He has filled in the complaint form on the website several times, he has called a number of times, but has not yet received a response to his complaint.
The Ministry of Defense has opted to forward the telephone number for complaints directly to voicemail. Part of the complaints came from Friesland and this resulted in a language barrier with the Defense telephone operators.
“Our employees could not get enough information during these conversations,” says a spokesperson for the Ministry of Defense. For that reason, people can only submit complaints via voicemail or the complaint form on the Defense website. The Defense spokesman indicates that they intend to call farmer De Graaf later today in response to his complaint form.
Prior to the exercise, the Ministry of Defense tried to inform the relevant regions as well as possible. The Defense spokesperson sees a slight increase in the number of noise complaints during this exercise.
It is particularly incomprehensible to farmer De Graaf that Defense does not take livestock into account during the exercise. “The helicopters flew lower than the tops of the trees in the area.” He hopes the helicopters will stay far away from his farm: “I don’t think the damage is that important, but they should not touch my cows.”