If it is not nailed down, somebody will find a way to steal it, be it your mobile or your car… but a helicopter belonging to fire fighters?
Naturally, the Guardia Civil and the Policía Nacional are plenty keen on finding out who half-inched the whirly bird because, quite frankly, the owners sorely miss it.
Now, the helicopter was stolen from a fire-fighting base in Cuenca, specifically the Brigada de Refuerzo de Incendios Forestales (BRIF) at the Prado de los Esquiladores airbase, in Buenache de la Sierra.
So, the BRIF boys… and girls… got up one morning and saw the helipad bathed in sunlight with not a hint of a helicopter-shapped shadow – it was effectively… gone. The chopper, like most aircraft used by forest-fire fighting units, was leased, in this case from Badcock International Spain (note: no quips about the company name).
Its pilot was fast asleep when the discovery was made. But let’s take a moment to consider ‘how to sneak off with a helicopter.’ It is not as if you could slip it into neutral and push it along on its wheels for a kilometre or two. It’s no good, either, laying a trail of breadcrumbs and hoping that it will follow. No. you’re just going to have to climb in and start the bloody thing up – and let’s face it; they’re noisy. And you’re not going to get far with a moped licence under your collar, are you?
In short, somebody buggered off with it – it’s as simply as that.
Anyway, Biggles was asleep but woke up when his beastie fired up and was in time only to wave it goodbye, which is what he explained to the Ministerio de Transición Ecológica, the Guardia Civil and his mother, no doubt.
The Guardia Civil consider that it was either stolen by a drug-running organisation, if not it will end up broken down and sold for parts.
According to the Base Commander, Encarnación Montes, they all thought that it was an emergency landing by a military helicopter at four in the morning, judging by the noise. “But we saw that somebody had flown off with the helicopter and were amazed,” she said.
So let that be a lesson to you all: don’t leave your helicopters out at night – put them away.
(News: Cuenca, Castilla-La Mancha)