Law Enforcement

The next time you see a police helicopter, hear about a major drug bust, or learn that a border patrol stopped illegal activity, think about how General Aviation (GA) helps law enforcement officials protect the country.

Today’s police are tasked with everything from catching aggressive drivers to stopping terrorists from entering the United States. To catch criminals, our police and law enforcement agencies use GA in virtually all forms. Ultralights, helicopters, airplanes and business jets allow police to monitor, track, pursue, and intercept neighborhood gangs and international drug kingpins. All thanks to GA.

Airborne patrolling gives police a bird’s-eye view of what’s happening in and around our cities, and along our nation’s borders and coastlines. When needed, ground units can ask their counterparts in the air to help. For example, when criminals try to flee, the police can track them from the air. Urban police units can track stolen vehicles from the air. This helps to speed the recovery of the vehicle and the arrest of car thieves and chop-shop operators. Law enforcement agencies also can deliver their best teams to the hot zone by air. Airborne rapid-response teams can save lives, such as a helicopter in urban assault squads or an airplane with sheriff’s deputies.

Plus video tapes and images taken by infrared cameras from airborne platforms can make the difference between a solid conviction in court or a case lost because it lacked key evidence.

Border Patrol and Counterinsurgency

Border patrol was once largely a matter of controlling drug smuggling and illegal immigration. Today, it also is the primary means of keeping terrorists from penetrating the United States.

Helicopters, airplanes, blimps, and jets are used to support the monitoring, tracking, pursuit, and interception of people trying to enter or leave the country illegally.

Search and Rescue

When injured hikers, mountain climbers, or boaters need to be rescued, aircraft and helicopters often are dispatched to transport them for medical treatment.

When a child is lost, a person with Alzheimer’s disease wanders away, or a hiker fails to turn up at base camp, GA’s search-and-rescue network kicks into action. It could mean enlisting a private pilot who volunteers his or her airplane and time. Or, maybe, a police helicopter with an infrared camera that’s part of a wider search effort. GA is often the most important tool available for finding and recovering someone before it’s too late.

Airborne search and rescue operations are not the exclusive responsibility of government agencies. Volunteers using their own aircraft, flying under the direction of appropriate authorities, conduct many search and rescue missions.

Disaster Relief and Emergency Evacuation

Mother Nature’s wrath can bring death and destruction to entire communities. GA pilots and aircraft are often the first to respond to these disasters GA is used to deliver emergency food and medical supplies, rescue people who are trapped or injured, transport support personnel, and monitor the progress of cleanup efforts. Even before disaster strikes, GA aircraft are used to fly officials who survey and forecast the level of threat to their community.

When floodwaters threaten, an earthquake strikes, or a fire rages, law enforcement agencies use their aircraft and helicopters to assist residents who are in danger and need to be rescued from rooftops, hillsides, or canyons.

We’ve seen it many times on television news programs: As a wildfire accelerates toward the cluster of homes along a ridgeline, a four-engine converted cargo airplane swoops in and drops thousands of gallons of water and fire retardant on the flames to try to halt their progress.

Water bombers and bucket helicopters play a critical role in slowing or stopping the spread of wildfires that annually inflict hundreds of millions of dollars in damage, destroy homes, and displace families.

Aircraft are used to drop the firefighting paratroopers, known as “smoke jumpers.” near fires so that they can be controlled before they get out of hand. Aircraft also drop emergency supplies and survey large areas to evaluate the levels of fire threat and fire damage.

Helicopters are used routinely for rooftop rescues and for rescues from skyscrapers, mountainsides, towers, and construction cranes.