For its first half-century the Royal Malaysian Navy, which traces its roots to the Straits Settlements Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve formed in Singapore on 27 April 1934, was run from Woodlands on Singapore island. Wikipedia says a small base was set up at Lumut, on the Perak coast, in January 1973 to defend the Strait of Malacca, and that it was built up between 1973 and 1984 by the German firms Kocks, Blohm + Voss and Thyssen.

The base came into use in 1980, and on 9 September 1984 the navy’s headquarters began moving from Woodlands to Lumut. Today it covers about 1,800 acres and holds the Western Fleet Command, the Education and Training Command, the naval special forces headquarters and RMN Naval Air HQ. Its commander since 11 November 2021, First Admiral Noor Zukhi Harun, is named by Wikipedia; whether he is still in post was not confirmed.

Malaysian naval aviation began small and late. Wikipedia says the navy bought six used Westland Wasp helicopters from the Royal Navy in May 1986, and that they joined the navy on 8 April 1988 — late, it notes, compared with the other nations that bought the type. One of them, M499-07, had served the Royal Navy as XT426 since 1965, so the airframes were already more than twenty years old.

The Wasp had a short Malaysian career. Wikipedia says it was phased out about ten years later and replaced by the Fennec; since the Fennec did not arrive until 2004, the sources reached leave a gap between the two that they do not explain. Two Wasps survive: M499-01, the former XV636, at the Royal Pahang Museum in Pekan, and M499-07 at the Maritime Museum in Malacca.

The air arm that exists today was bought in 2003–2004. Naval News recorded six Super Lynx Mk 100s for 501 Squadron, delivered from 3 March 2003 to June 2004, and six AS555SN Fennecs, later renamed H125M, for 502 Squadron, the first on 30 March 2004. The Lynx was the frigate helicopter for anti-ship and anti-submarine work, surface surveillance and over-the-horizon targeting; the Fennec did training, surveillance, medical evacuation, search and rescue, fire support and special forces support.

By March 2019 the Lynx had flown more than 10,210 hours and made 4,372 deck landings on moving ships without a fatal accident, and the Fennecs had flown 19,000 hours without an accident, according to Naval News. Both had seen action against Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden, most famously in the January 2011 recapture of the tanker Bunga Laurel. In July 2019 a Super Lynx fired two Sea Skua missiles in Exercise Taming Sari in the South China Sea.

Age has caught up. In 2023 the Chief of Navy, Admiral Rahman Ayob, disclosed that two of the six Lynx were in extended storage because there was not enough money to maintain them, and in 2024 Naval News reported a requirement for four new anti-submarine helicopters in 2026–2030. No order had been found by October 2026.

The navy was due to mark its 90th anniversary, and helicopters were rehearsing a flypast over the base. At 09:32 local time on 23 April 2024 AW139 M503-3 of 503 Squadron and Fennec M502-6 of 502 Squadron collided. One came down near the stairs of the base stadium and the other near a swimming pool. All ten aboard were killed: seven in the AW139 and three in the Fennec.

On 30 May 2024, according to Wikipedia’s summary of a CNA report, investigators found that one helicopter had flown at the wrong altitude and clipped the other’s rotor. The accident cost the air arm one of its three AW139s and one of its six Fennecs.