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KALISPELL- Sheriff's offices in Montana have been using government, chartered or medical aircraft to support law enforcement or search and rescue missions for years.

A new, non-profit organization has launched today to save time and lives during emergency situations. Flathead Emergency Aviation Services (FEAR), provides trained and qualified pilots and crew members, who aid in finding missing people, as well as in ground and water rescue missions, avalanche responses, train derailments or any other emergency.

The Flathead County Sheriff's Office and search and rescue members are using aviation as the best way to find a missing person.

"It's been normal in the past for aviation to be very much a last resort for law enforcement and even search and rescue operations and that's not always the best," Flathead County Undersheriff Jordan White said.

This is the first time the entire patrol division of the Flathead County Sheriff's Office has been able to use helicopter safety training, and to get used to flying in a law enforcement setting.
Getting law enforcement up in the helicopters will prepare them for when the time comes to look for someone who has gone missing.

"By going up in the air and looking down on the ground and observing people and the movements and looking at things from simply a different perspective, a height perspective, this is going to be a first line tool that we're going to be able to use that I think is going to be a great savings to the tax payer and the community and we're going to be able to actually find people quicker which is going to especially aid in search and rescue missions and Alzheimer patients as an example," Flathead County Sheriff's Department Deputy Lance Norman explained.

"This is a key step of keeping them safe of knowing how to open doors and put on seatbelts and take them off, work the radio system, so if they're actually being used in an emergency, the people that are on the aircraft know the right things to do without asking or experimenting with how to do those tasks," White explained.

The crew that was receiving helicopter experience on Monday was also trained on outdoor survival and safety.

Contact Katy Harris