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• Search Assists, equipment movement
• Sheriff, EMS and SAR available
• Serving Southwest Colorado and outlying areas
Search and Rescue (SAR)
If you have an emergency in the Colorado backcountry, call 911.
All emergency SAR efforts in Colorado must be coordinated by the appropriate County Sheriff office by law.
Colorado Highland Helicopters Search & Rescue Program
Colorado Highland Helicopters (CHH) has provided helicopter Search and rescue (SAR) services since its founding in 2016. CHH’s founders, Brandon and Dayle Laird started the company after years of serving southwest Colorado as medical helicopter crew, and recognized the need for additional SAR helicopter resources in our community. As such, CHH is committed to providing and further developing SAR capability in our region.
SAR Capabilities
Colorado Highland Helicopters is uniquely prepared to provide SAR services among helicopter programs in the region. CHH specialized SAR capabilities include:
Aircraft configuration – CHH utility configured aircraft have payload and space capacity to deliver and retrieve SAR resources into the mountains, including cargo/ski basket.
Pilot experience – CHH pilots fly daily in the region, and have extensive training and experience in the challenges of flying in the high mountains and challenging conditions here in southwest Colorado and the surrounding region. We fly a variety of related work including worker delivery, external load work and wildlife survey which improves our skills for SAR incidents.
RECCO – CHH is the first and currently (as of 2025) only helicopter RECCO SAR system in Colorado. Helicopter RECCO allows rapid coverage of a large search area if the lost person has a RECCO reflector in their clothing or gear. In some situations, RECCO can also detect other electronic items such as walkie talkies or headlamps, although with reduced performance compared to searching for a RECCO reflector. Learn more about RECCO here and here.
Lifeseeker – CHH has partnered with Centum RT of Spain to be among the first programs in the country to provide cellular helicopter SAR. Lifeseeker allows CHH aircraft to detect and rapidly locate the lost person’s cellular phone, even when there is no cellular coverage.
Girsberger HAS457-2 Avalanche Receiver System – The HAS457 allows CHH SAR aircraft to do a wide area search for avalanche transceivers worn by backcountry skiers and other persons traveling in potential avalanche terrain during the snowy colder seasons here in Colorado.
IR Camera System – Infrared camera systems observe heat differences in the environment. Our handheld IR camera can detect heat sources such as a campfire or potentially a person in a cool environment.
Short Haul / Long Line – As an FAA part 133 approved operator, CHH can attach cargo to a rope below the helicopter. This can allow deceased person body recovery with significant less risk for ground SAR crews.
Explosive Avalanche Mitigation – CHH has the requisite legal permissions to provide aerial delivery of explosives, which is sometimes needed to limit avalanche risk during SAR operations.
Air/ground radio system – this is a separate system from the aviation radio used to talk to other aircraft and air traffic control, and allows CHH aircraft to communicate with ground SAR teams to coordinate operations.
Part 135 Operator – CHH is an FAA authorized air charter service and maintains high standards of safety required to operate as such.
Requesting CHH Emergency Helicopter SAR assistance
As stated above, all emergency SAR operations in Colorado must be coordinated by the Sherif’s office for the country where the incident occurs. If you or a loved one is lost, overdue, injured, ill, distressed or stranded in the Colorado backcountry, call 911 immediately, or contact the county Sherif’s office directly if you are out of state. This is the quickest and only appropriate way to initiate a SAR response in Colorado. The Sherif’s SAR leaders can request needed resources.
If you are a SAR team or Sheriff’s office representative, you can request CHH SAR aircraft by contacting us directly or going through the CSAR duty officer. Contact us at 970-259-1423 if you would like updated contact and capability information.
Non-Emergency & Family Directed Searches
As stated above, the Sherif’s office must coordinate all emergency SAR activities. Occasionally, there are situations where the official emergency SAR operation coordinated by the Sheriff is discontinued and the lost person has not been located. In these situations, friends and family of the missing person may wish to continue searching, sometimes even months later when new information is discovered or conditions change. CHH can and has assisted with these type of situations. Contact us to discuss planning an effective search flight.
Costs of Helicopter SAR Operations
CHH provides SAR operations at a significant discount so as to make our service as available as possible to our region. Costs vary somewhat over time and depending on the type of aircraft used.
Costs to operate a helicopter are significant, typically hundreds or, for very large aircraft, even tens of thousands of dollars per hour. Helicopter SAR services are never free, with the cost being born by either the person needing assistance or the taxpayer. While Colorado SAR teams do not charge for rescue services, they often evacuate patients using hospital medical helicopters that bill the patient and/or their health insurance, typically tens of thousands of dollars.
Editorial: SAR Aviation in Colorado
In January 2022, the Colorado government released a study it commissioned on backcountry SAR in our state. You can read the study here.
The study recommended that statewide SAR leadership consider developing a plan for SAR aviation in the state by December, 2022. To date (January 2025), no such plan has been developed, nor any workgroup formed to develop such a plan. However, in the time since the study was released, specialized out of state helicopter resources had to be called in to perform a recovery no in state resource could achieve, two persons have died in an aircraft crash during SAR related training, and the state has spent more than 26 million dollars on a firefighting helicopter. We believe these events highlight the need for more thought and planning around SAR aviation in Colorado.
The study stated:
“Helicopter use is essential for certain types of rescues, and their use can help to increase the capacity of BSAR teams in light of staffing and other challenges. Compared to 37 other states that have statewide, county, or large-city aviation programs, Colorado lags behind in the use of dedicated helicopters for BSAR.”
Among other findings, the study specifically recommended:
-“Strategically increase the use of helicopters”
-“consider the value and cost to have a helicopter dedicated to BSAR needs”
-“Obtain helicopter-searching technologies,” specifically, RECCO and Lifeseeker.
CHH remains the only program in the state with either RECCO or Lifeseeker. Despite having these vital SAR capabilities, CHH remains an under-utilized resource. There have been numerous SAR incidents where CHH was not called or the request significantly delayed due to cost concerns, despite CHH specialized capabilities potentially making a significant contribution to the SAR effort.
Historically and lacking other resources, Colorado SAR teams have used medical helicopters to perform aerial search and deliver SAR personnel into the field. CHH believes this practice should be moved away from when other appropriate helicopter resources are available. Use of the EMS helicopter in a SAR incident makes in unavailable to provide lifesaving treatment and rapid transportation for other critically ill patients in our community.
CHH believes that the service of a private, highly capable helicopter available for SAR efforts represents a high value for the taxpayer. This model provides the needed services, but does not burden the taxpayer with the costs to purchase, hanger, maintain and insure the aircraft or recruit and train the aircrew. It also keeps medical helicopters available to rapidly attend to their primary role.
