ROCKFORD, Ill. (AP) – An agency that’s provided air support to law enforcement agencies across northern Illinois for 15 years is all but defunct and relinquishing its fleet of helicopters due to a lack of funding.
The Rockford Register Star reports a half dozen of the helicopters once operated by Air-One are parked outside the Stephenson County Jail in Freeport.
Air-One provided air support free of charge to law enforcement agencies from the Chicago suburbs and Winnebago and Stephenson Counties in cases of natural disaster, fires, search-and-rescues and manhunts.
Rockford Police Chief Dan O’Shea is president of the Air-One board of directors. He says the surplus military helicopters are “enormously expensive” to operate. He says the federal government will transfer the helicopters to new agencies that can afford to operate them.
