Who can order a rescue chopper? Tensions rising on the front line

Source: Radio New Zealand

Fire and Emergency (FENZ) has had to be reminded it is not allowed to order up search and rescue helicopters off its own bat.

Papers released under the Official Information Act show St John told FENZ in 2024 to stop trying to directly order an air ambulance chopper for search-and-rescue (SAR) operations, with Health NZ doing the same last year.

Internal e-mails have showed tensions on the front line about how the situation has been playing out.

RNZ has obtained five e-mails related to one rescue – and four dealing with another rescue – involving up to 15 people, from the FENZ front line up to the head office.

Lines rescue teams and their managers at FENZ complained to headquarters in Wellington last year about having to go through police to access the helicopters, and also sometimes having to wait to be called on to help.

“This is a further instance where we have been delayed,” said one in Waikato in January.

“This has become a recurring issue,” emailed another in Auckland in June.

Others who worked in other parts of search-and-rescue echoed those comments.

“This is taking far too long now,” one told RNZ about a delay in getting police to authorise a helicopter.

Another said a team could have got to a rescue in December “a lot sooner” but “the big cogs” had to turn. “The police are the ones that make those decisions.”

But police said they were the lead authority for local SAR operations and “well equipped to make informed decisions on the use of aviation assets”.

FENZ had not raised any concerns with police, and the agencies regularly discussed incidents, they said.

“Any systemic issues are raised through the appropriate governance forums.”

FENZ told RNZ: “There are no communication challenges between our agencies, and we work well together.”

‘Are we able to reach agreement with the police?’

The rescue side of search-and-rescue is facing greater demands, as big storms become more frequent.

The co-ordination required across multiple agencies and volunteers is key, and most of that responsibility sits with police.

But a lot of co-ordination is left to FENZ. On 13 February – when a man in a ute died in floodwaters near Otorohanga – a volunteer fire crew asked for either “a chopper or Hamilton lines rescue team”, and a FENZ swift water team was sent.

The team have to go by road, with their raft.

But some on the front line have now begun questioning if the system was fast and flexible enough.

They are asking if police should be in charge so much of most SAR operations, when police’s strength was in “search” while FENZ’s strength was in “rescue”, when a person’s location was known.

This has crystallised around who authorises the use of helicopters, in particular air ambulance helicopters (AAH) – the most useful and most expensive choppers.

After a mistake by police at a cliff rescue of a girl at Hahei in January 2025 – where police thought the girl was dead, so forced a lines team to drive by road instead of fly in – a senior FENZ manager wrote to his headquarters.

“The use of AAH resources is essential as most of the helicopters available through our air desk do not have the ability to fly at night or in bad weather.

“Are we able to reach agreement with the police that if we use an AAH for a rescue, then we will pay for it, as cost seems to be the reason our requests get declined?”

‘To try head off any further requests’

While Fire and Emergency has lines rescue teams ready to be deployed quickly – and recently added swift water rescue teams that travel by road – it has much less ability than police to get helicopters for them.

In the Hahei incident, fire-fighters knew the girl was alive, but had to pass their chopper request through St John to police, who admitted they failed to ask enough questions.

FENZ did not sign up to a 2022 agreement between police, ambulance and other SAR agencies, which made it clear that police were in charge of co-ordination.

“Previously, co-ordination agencies contacted providers directly,” Health NZ told RNZ.

The 2022 agreement talks about being flexible while heading off any “sub-optimal” responses or “duplication”.

“The agency receiving that [initial] notification should take initial action with the aim of preserving life, and then must immediately contact the agency with responsibility,” it said. That agency is usually the police.

Health NZ said the routing of all air asset requests through the SAR lead agency – usually police – ensured clear command, effective risk management, and oversight of personnel in “often high-risk operations”.

But two years later, fire-fighters were still trying to order up choppers themselves to carry lines rescue teams.

In April 2024, St John sent FENZ a memo “to try head off any further requests putting the [St John] team in an awkward position of having to decline the AAH to a fellow emergency agency”.

Health NZ followed this up at a May 2025 meeting with FENZ, the OIA showed.

“The issue of cost and scarcity of rotary wing air ambulances was raised [in May 2025] because there are alternative helicopter options for SAR,” HNZ told RNZ.

The ambulance choppers were “the most expensive helicopter option and should be reserved for when their capability is essential to the SAR operation”.

‘Delays of up to one hour or more’

There were two flurries of e-mails within FENZ either side of that May 2025 meeting, concerning the Hahei rescue and another in June 2025 at Musick Point, near Bucklands Beach in Auckland.

At the Musick Pt rescue, a badly injured woman who fell on to rocks was flown out by rescue chopper without lines rescue getting involved – but the FENZ crew were upset at being sidelined, according to e-mails. There was no evidence of the rescue being delayed.

A manager discussed with St John a procedure for getting an early heads-up in event their expertise came in handy.

They also raised it with local police, and said police had acknowledged that fire-fighters’ lines rescue was ready to go quickly, while police SAR were “usually on-call having to come from home or off the road, prepare and load gear, then respond to the incident which could have delays of up to one hour or more, depending on the location”.

In December, non-FENZ responders raised questions after police twice stood down air ambulance choppers already alerted by St John, at Lake Taupō and at Whangaparāoa.

In the Lake Taupō case, a teenager had leapt off a burning boat.

When the chopper was reactivated after a 20-minute stand-down, it spotted him in the water. The teen was not injured.

Meanwhile, police had been talking about helping with the rescue with a non-AAH chopper company, based alongside the AAH one at Taupō airport.

“Cost was not a factor,” they told RNZ. “Depending on the nature of a call and which emergency service receives it, police will also consider local aviation assets, which may be able to deploy faster, with operators who know the area, and any associated risks, well.”

‘The AAH was stood down’

At Whangaparāoa after Christmas, St John’s national airdesk was ready to send out an air ambulance on behalf of police for a man trapped on rocks as big waves came in, but police stood it down.

“Police advised via phone call that they did not need an AAH response, therefore the AAH was stood down by the national air desk and returned to base.”

When RNZ asked why, police said: “Given the information was that there was a person in immediate distress, a Category 1 rescue was initiated, with Auckland Maritime assuming incident control.

“Staff in the Police Eagle helicopter, which was responding, observed that the person was stuck on rocks, not otherwise in further distress. A surf lifesaving jetski assisted in bringing the man to shore.”

The Eagle is usually a surveillance helicopter, not a rescue chopper.

‘Prioritises preservation of life’

When police approve a chopper for a search and rescue operation, they pay for it.

Police told RNZ their response to all emergency calls “prioritises preservation of life above all else”.

They routinely debriefed after rescues and regularly discussed operational matters in a leadership group that included FENZ, St John and NZDF. Maritime NZ’s Rescue Co-ordination Centre (RCC) – which co-ordinates the bigger rescues – was also part of that.

But a source with experience of air ambulances and SAR told RNZ the system was “a bit of a mess” and “fragmented”.

In the Musick Pt e-mails – which circulated among 15 FENZ lines rescuers and managers in June 2025 – they talked about “recurring” problems swiftly getting the right chopper when they needed it.

After Hahei, a group manager asked headquarters “that our process is promptly reviewed, clearly clarified and cemented for all involved so when we are called upon to rescue and save lives, it isn’t delayed and declined by others out of our organisation due what is perceived to be cost”.

FENZ national manager of response capability Ken Cooper – in a 2025 e-mail – said he would meet partner agencies “with the intent on resolving the matter”.

‘No patch protection’

Cooper told RNZ this month FENZ’s standard procedure for a technical rescue was to pass all information to police to co-ordinate.

It had “reaffirmed” that police were responsible for “requesting our assistance” in a SAR operation, he added.

After Musick Pt, a FENZ assistant commander’s e-mail said there was “no patch protection, no animosity, everyone pitching in together for the best result of the customer”.

Two front-liners expressed alarm that their bosses seemed happy for police to have more say over lines rescue.

“If police were to wrestle the [lines rescue] capability from Fire’s hands ultimately there will be poor outcomes for the public,” one wrote.

RNZ approached most of the people in the FENZ e-mail chain. While the majority did not respond four did – two said they were not aware of wider problems like this, while two said it was very much an ongoing, wider problem.

Health NZ is another gatekeeper in its role commissioning air ambulance choppers, including for ACC.

Because the country had no dedicated search-and-rescue fleet, AAH choppers spent about four percent of their time on SAR operations, it said.

The constraint on who can order one for a rescue was a legal one reinforced by the 2022 agreement to ensure “all assets attending SAR incidents are under the oversight of the SAR co-ordinator”.

The rising cost of air ambulance choppers and how to co-ordinate them efficiently has been an issue for years.

“These aircraft are scarce and high-cost resources, so their deployment is carefully managed to ensure they are used where the greatest clinical benefit can be achieved,” Health NZ said.

Maritime NZ, which runs the RCC, said it was not involved in the rescues that sparked concerns. “Questions on processes and systems relating to specific SARs should be directed to the agency that co-ordinated the response,” it said.

The NZ Search and Rescue Council said it had no mandate over operational matters or co-ordinating operations.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand