BOURNE, Mass. (AP) – Jayhawk 6032, the first Coast Guard helicopter to reach the scene after the Northern Edge sank off Nantucket last year, is holding on the taxiway while its pilots perform a final pre-takeoff “beauty” check.

“We wouldn’t do this if this was a SAR case,” the commander, Lt. Sean Krueger, says over the beating rotor blades while he and his co-pilot, Lt.j.g. David Aldous, scan the gauges one more time.

If it were a real search-and-rescue, Krueger explains, “We’d already be on the way.”

Giving the instruments an extra look was hardly the kind of luxury that pilots at Air Station Cape Cod had a year ago Tuesday, Dec. 20, 2004, when the Northern Edge sank during a bitter squall.

One-by-one, the unit’s jets and helicopters suffered mechanical and weather-related problems that kept them from reaching the scene for two hours after the first distress call was received. The problems also created a six-hour gap in the aerial search the night the vessel was lost.

Five of the six crew members aboard the New Bedford-based scallop boat died in the sinking, the worst fishing accident off New England since the Andrea Gail sank in 1991. That incident became known through the book and movie “The Perfect Storm.”

The incident raised questions about the Coast Guard’s readiness to perform one of its core missions: responding to a maritime disaster. They also highlighted the service’s aging infrastructure at a time when it is not only expected to protect mariners and interdict drugs, but also provide homeland security.

“It is clear that since the Sept. 11th attacks, the Coast Guard’s responsibilities have increased far faster than its funding,” three Massachusetts Democrats – Sens. John Kerry and Edward Kennedy, and Rep. Barney Frank – wrote last January in a joint letter to President Bush.

A Coast Guard investigation concluded the Northern Edge sank because it turned sideways into 8-to-10-foot seas after snagging a dredging line on the ocean floor. Waves crashed over the deck as the vessel listed, flooding the engine room through an open watertight door. Water did not clear the deck because the crew could not open drainage ports fast enough.

At the time, the temperature was in the single digits, with wind chill well below zero and winds in the area topping 30 mph.

Since the Northern Edge sank, the Coast Guard’s First District, headquartered in Boston and overseeing its operations from the Canadian border to New Jersey. redoubled its efforts to improve safety aboard fishing vessels.

During the past year, it helped more than 700 fishermen complete a course in the use of flares, survival suits and life rafts. The district also increased the number of “voyage terminations” for having improper survival equipment from 37 in 2004 to 52 in 2005.

“All this was available before, but we’ve worked hard with our partners to increase the number of fishermen taking advantage of it,” said Chief Petty Officer Scott Carr, a district spokesman.

The air station, meanwhile, has changed its aircraft-washing procedures, so that one of its “ready” aircraft is always bone dry.

Investigators believe the first helicopter to fail, Jayhawk 6001, received a faulty warning for its tail-rotor anti-icing system because the aircraft was still drying after a recent washdown. When it returned to base, they could not find the problem.

That faulty indicator also prompted the Coast Guard to order a national, fleetwide replacement of a wiring harness in the HH-60’s anti-icing electrical system.

“Nobody beats ourselves up harder than we do,” said Capt. Tom Ostebo, a 23-year pilot who took over command of the air station in August following a routine leadership rotation. “Everyone is here to get these aircraft into the air when we need to. And when you can’t get off the ground, and you know somebody’s waiting for you, it’s extremely frustrating.”

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