Big names aim to get new rescue helicopter airborne

The Bell-412 helicopter to replace the Auckland Rescue Helicopter Trust's present machine is described as a "proven rescue workhorse".

A group of high-profile Aucklanders, including broadcaster Paul Holmes, plan to raise $7 million to fund a new rescue helicopter for the Auckland region - and Holmes is promising he won't be the pilot.

The Auckland Rescue Helicopter Foundation, which will be chaired by businesswoman Michelle Boag, was launched at the rescue helicopter service's Mechanics Bay headquarters yesterday.

It aims to raise enough money through public fundraising campaigns, community organisations and individuals to replace its 20-year-old leased helicopter with a bigger, more versatile craft for the rescue trust.

At the launch yesterday, Holmes said he had found himself in dire circumstances needing the help of rescue services several times, including a helicopter accident off the Gisborne coast and more recently in his "capacity as an amateur pilot".

He had agreed to become a member of the foundation "because I hoped they will ask me to fly it" but he reassured those at the launch he would not be the pilot.

Ms Boag, whose husband Mervyn Bennett was flown from Waiheke Island by rescue helicopter last year after suffering a heart attack, said the contract for the existing helicopter expired at the end of next year and the preferred option for its replacement, a Bell-412, was more able to meet the demands of the region.

Trust chief executive Rea Wikaira said the existing helicopter had reached the "absolute limit" of its capability.

The Bell-412 was a "proven rescue workhorse", which could carry up to four stretchers compared with the two of the present craft. It could carry doctors and nurses, as well as paramedics if required.

The other foundation members are Cath Handley, company director and Ellerslie Flower Show founder, Murray Bolton, company director and Auckland Rescue Helicopter Trust chairman, Alan Smythe, Opera in the Park organiser, and June McCabe, director of corporate affairs for Westpac Bank.

Auckland Rescue Helicopter

* Makes on average 500 missions each year.

* 95 per cent of all missions are launched within eight minutes.

* Rescue costs are about $5000 per hour.

* 75 per cent of every medical or casualty rescue is funded by the community.

* 25 per cent is funded by the Government and ACC on a fee-for-service basis.

* It is the service's 35th year in operation.

* It covers an area from Te Hana in the north down to Meremere in the south.