Possibility of second helicopter for police raised as option to address flight-time issues

Some officials are raising the possibility of considering whether to add a second helicopter to the Winnipeg Police Service's flight unit.

The suggestion comes the day after news surfaced about the police's helicopter spending less service time in the air than expected in 2012 due to staffing and maintenance issues.

In a few days, the helicopter's main civilian operator will be departing to work for another job in Calgary, leaving only two line pilots in Winnipeg police's flight unit.

Keith McCaskill, Winnipeg's police chief, pointed towards the staffing issue. 

"You can't have a helicopter pilot, a spare helicopter pilot, sitting - just because. And we don't have any helicopter pilots on the job, so that's the issue," he said. 

But the flight operations unit is also facing another problem.

In April, the helicopter, Air 1, was grounded for 12 days for maintenance issues.

Police in Calgary and Edmonton told CTV News similar issues arose when they only had one helicopter in each city to work with for their flight units.

Their helicopters would have to be grounded for two days for inspection every time they reached 100 hours of flight, or three to four days after reaching 500 flight hours.

Because of that, officials said each city had to purchase another helicopter to ensure one was available to be in the air every day.

The provincial opposition PC party said Manitoba should also consider a similar system.

"If there are issues in terms of maintenance and we're not getting the effective use of it, maybe then it's time to look at another chopper so we can continue to get the kind of results that it is getting," Kelvin Goertzen, PC justice critic.

The province currently has a three-year agreement with the city to cover the helicopter's $1-million annual operating costs.

Justice Minister Andrew Swan said when the contract is up for renewal, he would be open to discussing expanding the program.

"We will consider any good ideas the police have," said Swan.

Police are expected to release their annual report with details on the use of Air 1 in the next month.

Officials said acquiring a second helicopter would be on their wish list for the future.

In addition to Winnipeg, only five other police services in Canada have helicopters, including Calgary, Edmonton, York region, Durham region and Vancouver RCMP.

- with a report from CTV's Caroline Barghout