Eyes in the sky: Police plane keeping watch over Regina

More than 3,000 feet above the ground, the streets and houses and back alleys of Regina are spread out below the Regina Police Service’s Aerial Support Unit on a daily basis.

The plane has been in the air nearly every day since it was first put into commission a little over one year ago. The money came through for the program in the 2022 city budget.

It’s not a big plane – just a four-seat Cessna 182-T model. There’s just enough room for a person to manoeuvre a jacket on or off, but not much more.

Check out my feature this morning on the Regina Police Aerial Support Unit – known to most as just "the police plane". I took a spin around in a ride along pic.twitter.com/8IvA0reIYE

— Lisa Schick (@LMSchickler) March 19, 2024

It’s equipped with all the regular plane equipment – radios, gauges, pedals, digital readouts and maps – but it also has the equipment you’d find in a police vehicle like radios, maps and a laptop showing calls and crimes in progress.

Sgt. Steven Wyatt called it a patrol car in the air.

“We just are able to see things and get places faster and with a different vantage point than folks can on the ground,” he explained.

The plane for the Regina Police Service Aerial Support Unit flies about one kilometre above the ground and is able to still keep an eye out for officers on the ground. (Lisa Schick/980 CJME)

Wyatt was one of two people who spearheaded getting this unit off the ground – literally and figuratively.

In 2017, he was in Los Angeles and went up with the air support unit there.

“Something just grabbed me when I was flying with Los Angeles (police) and just being able to see how quickly they are able to get eyes on a scene and safety for officers and the public — you know, high-speed pursuits and that sort of thing,” he remembered.

When Wyatt got back to Regina, he started working on getting his pilot’s licence, thinking maybe an aerial unit was on the horizon, if far away, for Regina police. So he was in a good position to take advantage when the opportunity presented itself.

Wyatt has been in policing since 2002, spending some time doing plainclothes work with street crimes but mostly with the canine unit, so he’s no stranger to what things are like for officers on the ground.

Since the unit began flying in January 2023, Wyatt said members of the unit have got a lot of positive feedback from members on the ground.

“We’re in the air and we can see things, but we can’t do the things that we need, and so it’s really a team dynamic, working together with ground crews to keep Regina safe,” he said.

The high-powered, infrared camera on the Regina police plane is powerful enough to follow a suspect from nearly one kilometre off the ground. (Lisa Schick/980 CJME)

The plane is equipped with a high-resolution camera and infrared lenses so while it’s nearly a kilometre off the ground, the officers are able to see a lot clearly.

“Even at 3,000 feet we can see someone flick a cigarette butt, so the camera is very, very good,” said Wyatt.

The police plane responds to all kinds of calls. Wyatt said they’ll take an crime in progress including foot chases with patrol members, and they’ll also help plainclothes units with surveillance.

“Maybe the drug unit’s following suspected drug trafficking. We can get some video that is really good evidence in court. (It’s) really tough to refute that in court,” he said.

The team also takes a lot of calls involving vulnerable people; Wyatt gave the example of an 85-year-old man who left his house and his family didn’t know where he was. The plane can get eyes on that scene very quickly and start searching.

During a recent flight, in the first few hours, Wyatt and his tactical flight officer, Const. Corrie Neufeld, spent time checking addresses for people wanted on warrants, keeping an eye on a vehicle flagged for possible dangerous driving, and following a suspect from a robbery until officers on the ground could catch up and arrest him.

That suspect had run down the street, hopped two fences, and came out a ways down the block. Wyatt said if the plane hadn’t got eyes on the situation so quickly, the suspect likely would have got away.

The quicker they can get eyes on a situation, the safer it is for the suspect and the victim, according to Wyatt.

“I can’t even count the number of times we’ve had eyes on a house of a domestic dispute and watched the offender leave out the back door long before patrol would ever get there, and so we’re able to direct patrol to that person,” explained Wyatt.

He said it allows police to hold the offender accountable, but also helps by not allowing the offender to re-victimize the person if police had to search for them for days.

The plane flies through the day and night, about 16 hours a day with two shifts. Wyatt said it’s very different day to night.

“The city looks different, flying from about 3,000 feet above the ground. The landmarks I use to fly that aircraft are all different. I enjoy flying both, but I definitely prefer the night,” he said.

In a presentation to Regina’s city council last year, Regina police said from January to nearly the end of May, the aerial unit had responded to almost 900 calls, assisted in 180 arrests, recovered 17 stolen vehicles, and saved more than 100 trips for a cancelled ground unit.