By Mario Bartel

Black Press

It was a dark and stormy night when Sean Hackman saved a life.

The four-year veteran of the New Westminster Police Service was just a few months into his new gig with the RCMP’s Air One helicopter patrol when the radio at the unit’s base on the southern perimeter of Vancouver International Airport burst to life with chatter of a desperate search for an elderly woman with Alzheimer’s disease who’d wandered away from her home in deepest, darkest northwest Mission. Clad in little more than a T-shirt and pants, with the wind and rain howling and temperatures plummeting, there was no time to lose.

But with a ceiling of only 800 feet, Air One was grounded for the night.

A dog unit was called in for the search, but the weather made it impossible to pick up a scent. Officers searching by foot and in patrol cars could barely see a few feet in front of them in the inky blackness.

Warm and dry at his desk, Hackman twitched in frustration.

After all, it’s this kind of chance to be able to make a difference in people’s lives that lured him to police work in the first place.

It’s this kind of opportunity to assist his fellow officers from a unique aerial perspective that pushed him to apply last February to join the team of three veteran officers and five civilian pilots who patrol the skies of southwestern B.C. from Pemberton to Hope.

Making the cut

To become the first municipal officer to make the cut, Hackman beat 69 other applicants who were whittled down through a series of briefings; a three-hour test of their ability to memorize and identify landmarks and locations in 10 aerial photographs; another test to identify municipal borders and name every bridge in the Lower Mainland; a test of their ability to give directions; and, finally, a one-hour flight test designed by senior officers to challenge their spatial awareness, decision-making under pressure, sense of direction, and communication skills with the pilot with whom they’d be sharing an intense, close-working environment.

Oh yeah, and he also had to be no taller than 6’2” and no heavier than 220 pounds to be able to work in the small chopper, not a problem for the compact 26 year old.

“It was pretty intimidating,” says Hackman of the flight test. “But when I left after my one-hour flight, it was the most exhilarating, mentally-draining hour of my life.”

It also sealed the deal for the direction he wanted his career to take.

“I thought I did a pretty good job, given what I was presented with and having no knowledge of anything,” says Hackman.

Two weeks later he got the call; he’d made the top four.

He reported for further training. He was briefed on the unit’s daily grind of filing reports and maintaining databases.

He met the pilots on familiarization flights.

He learned about the specialized equipment used on Air One, like the gyrostabilized binoculars and night vision goggles and the moving maps displayed on a screen just above his knees, giving him the helicopter’s position relative to streets and landmarks.

He got his hands on the bulky joystick that controls the FLIR thermal imaging system that allows him to spot people and objects by the heat they throw off.

He also got to play with the 30-million-candlepower spotlight mounted on the left side of the $2.2 million Eurocopter EC 120B Colibri, bright enough to pierce through even the thickest gloom.

In June he underwent four days of daytime flight training, leading up to his first solo flight with only his pilot as his wingman.

“I guess my biggest fear that last day was whether the end of the world was going to happen that day,” said Hackman.

It didn’t.

Chaos on the radio

Instead, he got a taste of a pretty typical day for Air One, providing support for the Surrey auto team as they followed a stolen vehicle, and taking aerial photos for the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team of an area in Hope where a body was found.

Almost four years into its mandate, Air One and the seven police agencies that share its expenses are still learning its potential to assist law enforcement. While it’s most commonly called in to help track stolen vehicles or fleeing suspects, it’s also been used for search and rescue missions, border integrity, and providing intelligence for high-risk police procedures like raids on grow ops or serving firearms warrants.

“Public safety is one of the reasons this whole unit was formulated,” said Hackman. “It’s definitely an integral part of police resources.”

So much so that many police departments have changed the way they deal with things like pursuits; with Air One on the scene they’re more inclined to break them off as soon as there’s any kind of risk to the public or the officers on the ground.

“It can be chaos on the radio, and as soon as we show up everything calms down,” said Hackman. “A lot of the time they’ll look to us to guide them.”

Knowing how each police department in Air One’s patrol area deals with various situations, and how they communicate, has been a huge learning curve for Hackman. For instance, when following a stolen vehicle, he has to know which agencies prefer the helicopter hang back for more covert surveillance and which agencies like the helicopter to be obvious to the fleeing suspect in an effort to intimidate him into giving up. Some departments use a “box and pin” method of surrounding a fleeing vehicle and pinning it to a stop. Others prefer laying a spike belt. He also has to be able to pick out the codes distinct to the various departments through the constant chatter of seven police radios in his earphones.

And through it all, he also has to keep an eye out for other air traffic as well as give directions to his pilot.

“We’re a team, we’re partners,” said Roger Thomson, a pilot for Air One for the past three years. “He’s the policeman, he’s in charge of triaging the calls. My job is to keep the aircraft safe and both of us safe.”

“When you’re in the aircraft you really need to function as one,” said Hackman.

It’s that kind of confidence in his pilot that motivated Hackman into action that November night as officers searched desperately for the wandering elderly woman. “We were listening to the radio and finally I said, ‘we’ve got to go out there,’” recalled Hackman.

Flying low and fast, getting bounced around by the wind, Air One joined the search in minutes. Hackman powered up the FLIR camera, calibrated it and started sweeping a 400 or 500 square meter area near the woman’s house. Within moments he picked up the ghostly image of a figure in some bushes, looking like it was about to step onto a nearby road. A patrol officer a few hundred meters down the road couldn’t see anything. Hackman directed him straight towards the figure.

An hour after she was first reported missing, the woman was found cold and wet, but alive.

“It can be chaos on the radio, and as soon as we show up everything calms down,” said Hackman. “A lot of the time they’ll look to us to guide them.”

Knowing how each police department in Air One’s patrol area deals with various situations, and how they communicate, has been a huge learning curve for Hackman. For instance, when following a stolen vehicle, he has to know which agencies prefer the helicopter hang back for more covert surveillance and which agencies like the helicopter to be obvious to the fleeing suspect in an effort to intimidate him into giving up. Some departments use a “box and pin” method of surrounding a fleeing vehicle and pinning it to a stop. Others prefer laying a spike belt. He also has to be able to pick out the codes distinct to the various departments through the constant chatter of seven police radios in his earphones.

And through it all, he also has to keep an eye out for other air traffic as well as give directions to his pilot.

“We’re a team, we’re partners,” said Roger Thomson, a pilot for Air One for the past three years. “He’s the policeman, he’s in charge of triaging the calls. My job is to keep the aircraft safe and both of us safe.”

“When you’re in the aircraft you really need to function as one,” said Hackman.

The power of Air One

It’s that kind of confidence in his pilot that motivated Hackman into action that November night as officers searched desperately for the wandering elderly woman. “We were listening to the radio and finally I said, ‘we’ve got to go out there,’” recalled Hackman.

Flying low and fast, getting bounced around by the wind, Air One joined the search in minutes. Hackman powered up the FLIR camera, calibrated it and started sweeping a 400 or 500 square meter area near the woman’s house. Within moments he picked up the ghostly image of a figure in some bushes, looking like it was about to step onto a nearby road. A patrol officer a few hundred meters down the road couldn’t see anything. Hackman directed him straight towards the figure.

An hour after she was first reported missing, the woman was found cold and wet, but alive.