Police say nothing stopping FENZ from 'investing in their own helicopter' after frontline tensions

The police told their minister Mark Mitchell that the search and rescue system was going well and needed no big changes, just two weeks before they agreed to big changes.

Mitchell sought a ministerial briefing after a series of RNZ reports about problems, delays and tensions around helicopters and lines (cliff) rescues, primarily between police and firefighters.

Both Fire and Emergency (FENZ) and police had insisted to RNZ that everything was fine even though internal emails showed FENZ specialist frontline crews repeatedly asking their managers through 2024 and 2025 to intervene with police who they believed were sidelining them to the detriment of the public. Police denied that.

Police told Mitchell in the briefing on 12 March, "SAR [search and rescue] agencies agree that the current SAR system works well and system-level changes are not required."

However, in late March the various SAR agencies agreed to overhaul the system.

Police later in the same 12 March briefing called this "system-level change", and they told RNZ in April it would introduce a "streamlined" and "much-improved process" compared to now.

The overhaul followed a trial around Wanaka of a new system late last year only revealed by RNZ's reporting.

Police mentioned the trial to Mitchell in the briefing.

"While no system-level failures were found during the trial, some opportunities to improve coordination were identified," acting assistant commissioner Sean Hansen told him.

"This would be a significant shift to how the SAR system operates and there are several implementation workstreams that require further development before system-level change is adopted."

The overhaul aimed to give Maritime New Zealand's Rescue Coordination Centre (RCC) more control of helicopters though police would still coordinate about 2000 operations a year.

'Local-level errors'

Police blamed "local-level errors, not system-level problems" for the delays and conflict RNZ had reported on.

"Some of the incidents referred to in the article are examples of local staff not following defined processes," Hansen said.

He pointed to firefighters sometimes trying to get a helicopter to deploy a lines crew direct from St John Ambulance instead of going through police or the RCC.

In RNZ's reporting, a surf lifesaver at Piha and a Wanaka rescue veteran spoke up criticising the current SAR aviation system, while a firefighter described his cliff rescue team defying a police attempt to stand them down.

'Well-defined' and efficient

Hansen in the six-page briefing to Mitchell defended the current system as efficient and effective.

Police could get help from RCC or vice versa, or from FENZ, Surf Lifesaving or Coastguard.

"It enables multiple agencies to work together when responding to a SAR incident, under a well-defined set of guidelines."

Choppers were not always the best option, and while air ambulances could be called on they had medical transport priorities, he said.

However, Hansen added, "Police also acknowledges that, in certain incidents, some specialist assets have not always been deployed as effectively as they could be."

RNZ has heard from several rescue helicopter crew who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"We have always had an issue with police tasking where we have not been sent due to financial concerns from police," said one.

They talked about a river rescue that what would have been a "five-minute tasking" for them - with a full rescue swimmer on board - but that instead took hours.

At a cliff rescue in Coromandel in January 2025 police admitted mistakenly thinking a trapped girl was dead, and not permitting a helicopter for the FENZ lines crew. That decision was made by a police controller miles away in the Waikato who police admitted had not asked enough questions.

Hansen told Mitchell, "Information received at Police Comms can sometimes be unclear or third hand, as was the case in another of the examples referred to in the article."

Incidents were reviewed immediately and lessons were shared with comms and police districts, who had enhanced their processes, he wrote.

No debrief, learning review withheld

However, police told RNZ in a separate Official Information Act (OIA) they had not done a debrief of Coromandel "as it was not police-led operation".

They did a learning review but refused to release it.

"These reviews are not an investigation or debrief and release of this review would inhibit the willingness of police staff to engage in the learning process," they said.

They had no record of any intervention taking place over the mistake other than Waikato police being reminded about the authorisation process for a helicopter and to ask the "appropriate questions to determine the full circumstances".

They pointed out police only approved an air ambulance for FENZ if it was a SAR operation - if it were, say, a car crash, FENZ could get a chopper, or even buy their own.

"Police is not aware of anything which would prevent FENZ from investing in their own helicopter asset (such as Police's Eagle helicopter), should they wish to do so," Hansen told Mitchell.

The police also told him that cost was not a primary factor in SAR aviation rescue asset decisions, though deploying FENZ teams was expensive.

Police and FENZ are both part of the SAR operational leadership group that approved the aviation coordination overhaul in March. It is being led by RCC and is expected to take two or three years. It is unclear how it will be funded.

Police told Mitchell FENZ had not raised any operational concerns at the leadership group.

Emails released under the OIA show FENZ leaders raising the concerns of their specialist front-liners with police SAR leaders outside the leadership group.