Ready for takeoff: Regina police plane nearly up in the air

The Regina Police Service will be in the sky above the city as well as in the streets, potentially in a matter of weeks.

Chief Evan Bray is hoping the service’s plane will be up and running by October.

“We’ve got the unit, we’ve got all of the equipment to go in the unit, we’ve identified our pilots (and) we’ve identified the people that are going to be tactical flight officers that will actually be doing the spotting of the work that’s on the ground. Now it’s a matter of kind of outfitting the plane and getting them up for a little bit of training,” Bray said Tuesday.

Bray said they’re seeing nearly 500 incidents a year where people are evading police.

“That’s a huge number of people that are not stopping for police. It’s really indicative of some of the challenges that we’re experiencing in the community — especially drugs and firearms,” he said.

During the Board of Police Commissioners meeting Tuesday, Bray explained that people don’t stop for a number of reasons, including that the vehicle is stolen, they have something in the vehicle they don’t want police to see like alcohol, drugs or guns, or there might be warrants out for them.

However, Bray is hoping the plane will help to bring that number down.

“I don’t like to keep using the phrase game-changer, but I do think it’s going to change the dynamics for us and for safety in the city,” said Bray.

Currently, Bray said officers will often cut off a chase so as not to endanger public safety. But he explained that a plane will allow police to continue to track the vehicle and find the suspects easier when they stop and get out.

Right now, that’s not the case.

“We oftentimes will find the car ditched four hours later and then we’re starting an investigation without knowing who was in the car. We’re trying to get fingerprints out of there. Hundreds of hours of investigation go into these evades to try and determine who was driving the car and who should be held accountable for that,” said the chief.

Saskatoon’s police service has had an aerial support unit for years and Bray said that city did see a decrease in the number of evades and pursuits that were happening with the plane was brought into service.

“It has been enough of an effective tool in Saskatoon that they really do feel it has changed the behaviour of suspects that are fleeing the police or failing to stop for police, and ultimately driven those numbers down,” said Bray.

The acquisition and cost of the aerial support unit was approved by Regina city council in the 2022 budget deliberations last winter.

The capital cost for the unit was pegged at $1.2 million at the time, including the plane and equipment, with much of that defrayed by a grant from the provincial government and SGI. Ongoing costs will include the officers in the unit and fuel and maintenance for the plane.