In order to help serve and protect the nearly two million residents of their county, the Broward County Sheriff’s Office operates four helicopters for law enforcement, fire, and rescue missions. The county is located north of Miami, with Fort Lauderdale as the county seat.

On average, the aviation unit conducts 2,500 missions a year using approximately 2,000 flight hours. Over the past ten years, it has assisted on 33,397 law enforcement missions and 2,502 medevacs.

The county has four helicopters. Two Eurocopter EC135’s manufactured in 1999 and 2012 are used by Fire Rescue for Emergency Medical Services. Two Airbus AS350’s that came off the assembly line in 2017 are primarily for law enforcement.

The EC-135’s recently received new red livery, which was a significant change from the black, green, and gold theme as seen below in a photo from 2013.

The AS350’s are used for criminal search and apprehension, search and rescue in the Everglades and offshore, and deployment of the SWAT team. They are piloted by Deputy Sheriffs.

All four of the Unit’s helicopters are outfitted with a Forward Looking Infrared system, night vision capabilities, 30 million candlepower Night Sun, moving map systems, and Lojack.