A Non Profit Foundation, Volunteer Aircrew, Maintenance and Corporate Supporters Unite to Provide Police Air Support Click to see more

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Departments Submerge in Water Drills
Tuesday, 18 Aug 2009 Story by: Crystal Haynes Shelton (WTNH) -
The recent mid-air collision over New York's Hudson River is a somber reminder of how an ordinary day can change quickly. Everyday emergency crews prepare for days like that and today in Fairfield County responders converged on the Housatonic River for a special drill.

It was an exciting day by the water for a Shelton toddler; a perfect opportunity to practice the sign for "helicopter" as Fairfield Police "Eagle One" dropped divers into the Housatonic River for a mutual aid drill. Click to see more

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Awards ceremony for the October Coventry find and rescue.

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Eagle One is law enforcement’s eye in the sky Written by Bill Bittar Friday, April 24, 2009
Fairfield police operate Eagle One, but the chopper responds to calls throughout the region.

When a disabled 62-year-old military veteran and former hunter took a drive into the woods near his Coventry home to look at pheasants last fall, he somehow got lost, and his concerned family reported him missing. For two-and-a-half days, search parties on foot, in all terrain vehicles and aboard airplanes scoured the area without any luck. The victim weathered cold nights with no food or water.

Then Eagle One, the Fairfield Police Department’s helicopter, was called in.“I picked up a local police officer who knew the area, and we flew over a field and looked back into the woods, and found the victim,” said David Faile Jr., the pilot that day. “We took him right to Windham Hospital.”

It had taken Faile, his crew and the officer less than an hour to track down the missing man. Faile, a pilot of 48 years, is among the volunteers who fly Eagle One, a Huey helicopter built in 1968. Though the chopper is operated by the Fairfield Police Department, it stands ready to respond to emergency calls throughout the region and is housed in the Gamma hangar at Sikorsky Memorial Airport in Stratford. “It’s a real resource for the state of Connecticut, and really the Tri-State area,” said Fairfield Police Chief David Peck during a press conference inside the hangar on Monday morning.

Requests for Eagle One go through the Fairfield Police Department, which checks on the availability of the helicopter and a crew and whether weather conditions are good to fly in. Lt. Dan Gombos is in charge of a police crew that includes Capt. Don Smith, and Officers Anthony Vaspasiano and Mark Fracassini.

The Old Saybrook Police Department was responsible for Eagle One until Fairfield took the reigns in the late ‘90s. Former Police Chief Joseph Sambrook and Officer James Petrino were instrumental in the town’s obtaining operational control of the helicopter, according to Peck. The Nelson-D’Ancona Foundation is responsible for the maintenance and up-keep of Eagle One.“There is no expense to the taxpayers,” Peck said. The foundation collects private donations to pay for insurance, maintenance and fuel.

The Volunteers
Eagle One’s pilots and crew members include police officers and fire and emergency medical services personnel with prior and current military and civilian training experience. Volunteers with a variety of backgrounds are required for the helicopter’s operation.Crew members who had joined Faile on the Coventry search and rescue mission were Charlie Brady, Robert Hettrick and Chris McNeill.

Tom Miller, a pilot, is CEO and director of Flight Services Group Inc., at Sikorsky Airport and the Nelson-D’Ancona Foundation; Brady is vice president of the foundation; and McNeill holds the title of chief pilot. Faile lives in Fairfield and has been flying planes since he was 16. He is also a licensed aircraft mechanic who builds his own airplanes. A field trip to Sikorsky Airport sparked Faile’s passion for flying at an early age. “When I was a Cub Scout, we had a field trip to the airport here,” he recalled. “We got to walk over to the DC-3 at the old hangar across the field.” The Douglas DC-3 is a fixed-wing, propeller-driven passenger plane that made commercial air travel popular when it made its debut in 1936, according to Boeing.com. Jeffrey P. Pino, president of Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., is also a pilot for Eagle One, along with fellow volunteer pilot Alan Wilcoxson of Shelton, who is a Stratford police lieutenant. Other volunteers include, rescue technician Eric Diaz, a Manchester firefighter and paramedic; and Jeanette Eaton, a Bell Helicopter representative pilot.

Fairfield firefighters are emergency medical technicians certified and trained in rescue work. Firefighters assigned to Eagle One are Assistant Chief Steve Curry, Lt. Ray Bullard, Lt. John Cronin, Lt. Len Waiksnis, Brian Felner, Jay Swindon and Jeff Pinckney. Assistant Fairfield Fire Chief Christopher Tracy said his department’s thermal imaging cameras helps the Eagle One crew find people obscured by brush.

Taking flight
The Coventry rescue was not the only high profile mission Eagle One was involved in. A crew also took it to Baton Rouge, La., to assist in the search and rescue efforts and transportation of cargo in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Eagle One can be used for surveillance and photography, counter drug missions, cold water rescues, and nighttime lighting of accident scenes. Peck recalled a time when Eagle One illuminated the early morning Bridgeport sky as city officers served search and seizure warrants.

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Student fundraising soars for cops' coptery
Genevieve Reilly, staff writer 04/27/2009
Contributed photo Students at Sherman School in Fairfield raised $1; 350 for Eagle One....

FAIRFIELD -- Fundraising launched six years ago by fifth-graders at Sherman School has really taken off.
This year, the schoolchildren collected $1,350 for Eagle One, the Fairfield Police Department's search-and-rescue helicopter, which is housed at Sikorsky Memorial Airport in Stratford.

Eagle One is funded by the Nelson-D'Ancona Foundation through private and corporate sponsors and donations, and a crew of volunteers serves as pilots. "We used to do a unit on flight in the fifth grade," said teacher Ted Ostrowski. "I came across an article in the newspaper about the helicopter." He broached the idea of collecting money for Eagle One with fellow teachers.
"They said, 'Go for it,' " Ostrowski said, "and we more or less adopted the helicopter." In the past, Eagle One has "dropped in" for visits to the school to thank students for the donations. This year, four fifth-graders, representing each fifth-grade class at the school, made a trip to Sikorsky Airport to deliver their check. "That's a lot of money," said police spokesman Sgt. James Perez, who accompanied the children on the trip, "and they raised it all by themselves." Ostrowski said the students started collecting the donations the second week in March, and with the state of this year's economy, weren't sure what to expect.
"After the first few days, I thought we might reach our goal of $1,000," Ostrowski said. "Then it slowed down, but toward the end of the month it picked up." The $1,350 is the most the students have raised, he said.

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Eagle 1 volunteers cited for lofty ambitions
Fairfield cops honor Eagle 1 volunteers By Genevieve Reilly
FAIRFIELD -- Don't tell anybody, but there are times when Sikorsky CEO Jeffrey Pino finds himself behind the controls of a Bell UH-IH helicopter, also known as a Huey. "I spent 17 years at Bell prior to coming to Sikorsky, so I know the helicopter really well," he said. Pino is one of six volunteers who pilot the Fairfield Police Department's Eagle 1 helicopter. "I just think it's a real valuable asset for the whole state." Pino and the other volunteer pilots were on hand Monday at Sikorsky Memorial Airport in Stratford so police officials could "showcase and focus on the volunteers who make this happen," according to Chief David Peck. "Without them, we couldn't do this. "The department acquired the helicopter in 1998, said Peck, and at that time, had an officer on its roster who was a helicopter pilot. That officer, James Petrino, has since left for a job with the New York State Police, but the aviation unit continues, thanks to pilots who give their time as well as donations from the community. Because the helicopter is a piece of police equipment, Peck said all the pilots have been made "special agents" of the department. Other members of the copter crew include police officers and firefighters from Fairfield, as well as from Stratford and Trumbull. Eagle 1 is deployed for surveillance, counter-drug missions, search-and-rescue operations, aerial command and control, nighttime lighting of accident scenes, assisting special teams, disaster relief, and community and educational events.

The helicopter also is available to public safety agencies in the tristate area, according to Peck, who added no money from his department's budget is spent on the helicopter. Eagle 1, a surplus Army helicopter, was first obtained in 1992 when the Nelson-D'Ancona Foundation was established to provide funding for an emergency service helicopter that could be used by any local or state agency at no cost. It was first assigned to the Old Saybrook Police Department before coming to Fairfield. "We send out appeals, we apply for grants," said David Faile, a local resident who serves as a pilot and treasurer for the foundation. "We rely totally on the support of the community, and if we save one person, it's worth it." For example, the hangar space is provided by Tom Miller, another pilot and the foundation's director and president. Miller is the CEO and director of operations for Flight Services Group at Sikorsky Airport. The Eagle 1 organization and its professionalism are " very impressive all the way around," Pino said. "Everything's by the book, and that's encouraging." Faile, a pilot since age 16, said his involvement is not only a way to spend his retirement from AT&T giving back to the community, but he gets the satisfaction of flying helicopters. "Nothing beats that," he said. And nothing beats the outcome of missions like the one last October when the crew was called to help search for a Coventry man who had been missing for two days. On board that day were Faile, Charlie Brady, Robert Hettrick and Chris McNeill. After an hour of searching, the man's car was located on the edge of a field and he was found, alive, on the vehicle's floor. "That's a great feeling," Faile said. "It's a thrill." Even if an Eagle 1 crew gets called to the hangar only to have the mission aborted before they get off the ground, Faile's OK with that. "We'd rather be here and be assembled and ready to go," he said. A member of the group for about eight months now, Pino said so far he's just participated in training and "check out" flights. "No hard-core rescues yet," he said.

Eagle 1 Finds Missing Coventry Man Wednesday, October 8th 2008
A call from Fairfield Pd Lt Gombus at 1030 AM for a request for support from Coventry, CT.  A man has been missing for two days and they need support for an air search. Eagle one launched at 1145 from Sikorsky Memorial Airport with four Eagle One pilots and crew members (Charlie Brady, David Faile, Robert Hettrick, and Chris McNeill). They arrived on scene at Coventry at 1255. They coordinated with Coventry Police Department to pick up Sergeant Tony Ochtera at a local school athletic field for assistance in the areas that should be searched. Eagle one conducted a search pattern in the area that the missing person was known to frequent. This consisted of heavily wooded areas and farm fields. After almost an hour of searching, the missing person's car was located at the edge of a field under trees. Eagle One landed in a recently harvested field to check the vehicle. When car was checked individual was found on the floor in the back seat unable to move but conscious. The car was located in an area not easily accessible by rescue equipment so, it was decided that Eagle One should transport the victim to the Windham hospital.  

The four Eagle One crew members plus the Coventry officer fashioned a stretcher from a blanket and carried the victim to Eagle One. The middle seats were removed from Eagle One by Charlie Brady and the victim was placed on the floor of the helicopter. Eagle One departed the field for the Windham Hospital helicopter landing pad. Upon landing at Windham Hospital, hospital paramedics removed the victim to the Emergency Room.

Eagle One then departed the Hospital for Windham Airport and returned to Sikorsky Memorial Airport. Successful Mission!

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Coventry police make donation to Eagle 1, Journal Inquirer Staff, Friday, December 12, 2008
On Oct. 6, Carlton “Skip” Coffined, 62, left his home in his vehicle and was reported missing. After searching for him for two days, Coventry police requested the assistance of Eagle 1.

After about 20 minutes of searching, the helicopter crew located the missing man’s vehicle in a remote wooded area. Scofield was in failing health and was taken by helicopter to Windham Memorial Hospital, where he was treated for a number of ailments. He has since recovered, police said.

The Eagle 1 crew members who participated in the rescue are special officers Charles Brady, David Faile, Robert Herrick, and Chris McNeil.

In addition to the helicopter, a state police plane searched for Scofield, as did workers from the state Department of Environmental Protection who searched the woods on all-terrain vehicles.

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