7NEWS Reports: Search & Rescue

It's called air wing. Two helicopters, each worth nearly three million dollars. So who's flying these state-of-the-art choppers? 18 highly trained Massachusetts State troopers including two women. Their mission is to help police and firefighters across the commonwealth.

Sgt. Michael Barry
"The air wing's main responsibility is search and rescue. We search for everything from missing children to stolen cars."

We took to the skies with members of air wing, to see how this high-flying operation works. In the cockpit, there's a division of labor. The pilot, on the right, focuses on flying. A tactical flight officer, or TFO, directs the mission and does most of the "police" work.

Trooper Jody Reilly, State police air wing
"The TFO does most, I should say all of the communication with any police on the ground and most of the work regarding the search."

Air wing's TFO's have incredible high-tech equipment at their fingertips: Aviation, topographical and street maps with global satellite positioning night vision goggles that turn night into day and a "night sun" spotlight as powerful as nearly four-thousand car headlights.

The chopper's also equipped with sophisticated infrared equipment that obviously works at night, but also during the day. It helps find people based on body heat. The TFO can actually downlink images to officers on the ground

Last winter, State police put the infrared to work helping firefighters identify hot spots after the devastating warehouse fire in Worcester. More recently, air wing helped search for a missing canoeist in Norton. The choppers are out on patrol every day now. When they're not on a mission, members are training for the next one.

At Houghton's pond in Milton, troopers practice using what's called the "Bambi bucket." The air wing uses it to scoop water out of ponds and dump it on brush fires. They also practice rescues. All the tactical flight officers are emergency medical technicians and all are trained to rappel out of the helicopter. A second TFO stays in the chopper, constantly communicating with the pilot.

Trooper Gale Macaulay lowers herself one-hundred feet to the ground, practicing for the next call. Right now, air wing's leaders say their response time is about 20 minutes for any sort of emergency, anywhere in the state.

"Air Wing's" helicopters are based in Norwood and Chicopee and they respond to emergencies 24-hours a day. Public safety officers who need assistance can contact air wing through the state police.