Sheriff Garcia elated to add new 'Air Two' helicopter

Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - Since taking office as Erie County Sheriff in 2022, John Garcia has been seeking the acquisition of a new helicopter for the department. This new helicopter will further help the Erie County Sheriff's Office with emergency response efforts across the region.

Then on Tuesday, Sheriff Garcia got the news he was looking for when Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz unveiled his 2025 budget proposal.

As part of Poloncarz's proposed budget, it contains funding for nearly $116 million in capital investment for 2025, which includes $15 million in vital public safety projects that includes a new “Air Two” Sheriff Helicopter.

"When I took office back in January of 2022, I did an assessment of all the assets of the Erie County Sheriff's Office. Something that I noticed needed to be updated was 'Air One', our helicopter," said Sheriff Garcia in an interview with WBEN. "23-years-old, so you can imagine the maintenance schedule kept it down on the ground more often than it was up in the air and available to us. We needed it to be available to us [for] searching for people with dementia or kids that are missing, Buffalo Bills games. These chases that we used to do for stolen vehicles, we no longer do those. They're unsafe. It's like having a missile going 90 miles per-hour through the city or the county. You can't outrun a helicopter. So we saw the need, and then, of course, there's a pay that comes along with it."

Garcia says the Sheriff's Office were fiscally responsible when making the effort to acquire Air Two.

"We had the county, we had reached out to the state, Assemblyman Pat Burke appropriated $1 million towards the helicopter, and then Congressman Nick Langworthy did $4.5 million. But that doesn't mean we stopped," Garcia noted. "Even though the helicopter is now paid in full, we are going to still continue to seek out funds for that helicopter from the Governor's Office, and we're hoping that next year we'll be able to do so."

Garcia calls the acquisition of Air Two this upcoming year a "generational" addition to the Sheriff's Office.

"Our helicopter now has been here for 23 years, and this new helicopter, which is a much more modern and efficient aircraft, I hope to have it working for the county for 25 years," the Sheriff said. "Yes, there's an initial cost at the front, but maintaining an old helicopter, it's not inexpensive, it's not cheap. It's still tax dollars that are going down the drain to maintain an old piece of aircraft that 30% of the time is available for us to go up in the air. We had a Buffalo Bills game this year where it was not available, and that can happen. It's a great tool to really survey the entire area. It's obviously 70,000 people, so there's a lot of cars, a lot of moving parts, a lot of people that get lost. And also to deter any kind of incident, terrorist attack from happening."

Once Air Two arrives and is available for the Sheriff's Office, does that mean that Air One will be retired from service? Garcia says that decision is not expected to be made right away.

"Let's see what the cost is to the taxpayers in maintaining Air One, because no matter that we have a new helicopter, it still has a maintenance schedule. It's going to be down. So in those cases, do we have Air One be up?" Garcia said. "The return on selling it was minimal, so it may make sense to keep Air One as a backup. But we're not going to decide that until we figure out how much it's going to cost."

Another option for the Sheriff's Office with Air One is if it does get additional funds to repay the Erie County taxpayer from the state or the federal government, the helicopter could get passed along to one of the neighboring Sheriff's Offices that are in need of a helicopter, like Niagara County.

"The Erie County Sheriff's Office is a regional resource," Garcia noted. "This helicopter is not just for the areas we cover, it's not only for Erie County. It's for everyone. And we really are the only proactive helicopter up in the air.

"We cover the entire county, adjoining counties anytime they need assistance, and 90 miles of coastline. And that's important, because when there's a boater in distress, having the twin engine new helicopter, a drone cannot do that. I know there's been talk about drones and so forth, they have a purpose. If you want to do a crime scene, you could put a drone up. Crowds, you could do a drone up and see how many people we have and so forth. Search, recovery, rescue, following stolen vehicles, helping people on the lake, on the river, there's no substitute for a helicopter. We could get across the county in no time."

This helicopter that will become Air Two is a brand new Airbus helicopter that the Sheriff's Office was lucky to come across.

"Since COVID, the supply chain has been absolutely terrible. There was a cancelation by a police agency somewhere in our nation, and it became available to us. So we were fortunate to be offered the opportunity to purchase a brand new helicopter that was in production," Garcia said. "It's not like a vehicle that you buy and then you customize, everything has to be done at the same time."

Garcia is looking forward for to getting Air Two in the air some time in the early part of 2025.

"It's hard to pinpoint a date, because right now it's in production. It's getting all the bells and whistles put on," he said. "We're very fortunate that we also received a $2.9 million grant from New York State for technology, so that's being utilized for it. We're very fortunate. Everything aligned where we didn't want to have the Erie County taxpayers burdened with the entire cost. We, at least, got, right now, $6 million from outside the county. We will continue seeking out funds not only for the helicopter, but for any and all improvements within the Sheriff's Office."