The National Commissioner of the South African Police Service, General Fannie Masemola handed over a brand new H125 airbus helicopter to the Visible Policing and Operations late last year.
The newly procured airbus will bolster the organisation’s crime-combatting efforts and adds to the police’s existing fleet of helicopters across the country whose aim is to provide air support in crime prevention operations as well as search and rescue missions.
They mainly focus on tracking and tracing suspects in high-risk incidents such as cash-in-transit heists, armed robberies, hijackings, and a host of other serious and violent crimes.
This will be essential for Midrand communities as the recent crime stats for the second quarter of 2022/23 ranked Midrand as number five provincially and nine nationally in terms of hijackings.
Speaking during the handing over ceremony held at the Grand Central Aiport in Midrand in December last year, Masemola said resourcing and equipping the police operational environments remained a top priority for the SA police.
“We continue to resource our visible and operational response environment with vehicles and other resources to strengthen our crime-combatting efforts. For now, this helicopter will be based in Gauteng to bolster crime combatting operations,” said Masemola.
The SA police airwing unit consists of aircraft and helicopters which support operations for high-risk units which include the Special Task Force, the Counter Assault Team, the National Intervention Unit, Tactical Response Teams, and the Public Order Police units.
They also provide operational support during public unrest and crowd control operations, and vehicle, livestock and game theft operations.
Police officers who are deployed to work on board are called Airborne Law Enforcement Officers. Apart from providing air support to specialised teams on the ground, these members are trained in assisting SA police pilots with observations and also reading aerial maps.
Resident Vanessa Elias applauded the police and said, “I am so glad for this new addition to crime combatting, we need eyes in the sky, especially for high-speed chases on highways or even immediate response.”
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