The King County Sheriff’s Office got a new helicopter, replacing a helicopter from 1973.

Deputy pilot Tony Mullinax said they’ve been attempting to get a new helicopter for years, with their backup being from 1973, and their main helicopter dating from 2008. Mullinax said they scrapped the 1973 helicopter and got about a million dollars out of it, which went toward the new one. The 2008 helicopter will be their backup.

“Those are used for helping with police calls. We do a lot of searches with them as well, not only for bad guys, but also for missing people out in the mountains, or in the community — kids and elderly people. We chase cars with them, we do surveillance,” Mullinax said. “So, anything you think a police aircraft would typically do, we do it with our patrol helicopters.”

Mullinax said the helicopters are kept at the Renton airport, but they could get to Federal Way in 10 minutes, or to Leavenworth to save someone in the mountains in 20 minutes, and back to the hospital in another 20 minutes. Mullinax said it might take a ranger multiple hours to get somewhere they can get in 20 minutes. And, although they are the King County Sheriff’s Office, Mullinax said in Washington state, they go save people everywhere.

Another advantage is that this new helicopter is allowed to go through clouds. Mullinax said if the day was clear, but there was one cloud above the airport, they previously would have to wait, but now they can just go.

Mullinax said the helicopter cost about $6.8 million in total, with about $1 million coming from Washington state, and the rest coming from King County. Mullinax said this is the only KCSO aircraft that King County taxpayers paid for. He said all their other aircrafts were free military surplus, and once they had a helicopter they paid for with federal grant funds.

“This is the first time that the local taxpayers have put out any money to buy an aircraft, and this unit has existed since 1991,” Mullinax said. “So it’s neat that we at least provide enough value to the community and the elected officials around here that we’ve managed to make our own way through surplus and that sort of thing since 1991. So now, to have them actually make a pretty significant investment in us, it’s pretty neat.”