The Coast Guard’s Jayhawk helicopters are aging as they spend thousands of hours in the air

ST. PETERSBURG, Florida. – The U.S. Coast Guard Jayhawk helicopter may be the ultimate rescue vehicle for a coastal area like Tampa Bay.

“Once they’re airborne, they can be on the scene within 5 to 10 minutes and hovering over the victim, ready to get the victim off the boat or out of the water,” said Ryan Dilke, a retired Coast Guard commander and now chief of Eckerd College Search and Rescue.

But the helicopters designed to rescue people from the water have been given an additional task. Since the September 11, 2001, attacks, the Coast Guard has increased patrols as part of Homeland Security. They have also expanded their drug interdiction operations.

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Additional tasks have resulted in thousands of extra hours of work on the aging Jayhawks.

According to a report by Forbes, the Coast Guard has already grounded six Jayhawks for safety, having reached 19,000 hours of service. The report said many more helicopters are approaching that mark.

The Coast Guard has 48 Jayhawks stationed across the country. In a statement to Forbes, the Coast Guard said it “anticipates no immediate impact to search and rescue capabilities.”

Dilke said the loss of the Coast Guard helicopters would have a major impact on lifesaving capabilities in the Gulf of Mexico and local waters.

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“There aren’t that many of them anyway, so if they lose planes, it will be at the expense of coverage and capacity,” said Dilke.

The Coast Guard falls under the U.S. Department of Transportation, not the Department of Defense, which could make it harder to free up money to replace the aging helicopters.

“It can take an exorbitant amount of time to select the right aircraft and outsource that, years and years,” Dilke said. “I don’t know if they have the time to wait that long.”

If time is the difference between life and death, the question of how much time the Coast Guard Jayhawks have left could become a major question along the coast.

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