The National Police Air Service (NPAS) provides air support to police forces across England and Wales. We are a national support service and are not the lead agency for the incidents we attend.
The National Police Air Service (NPAS) provides borderless air support to all police forces across England and Wales 24 hours a day, seven days a week,365 days of the year. On a daily basis, NPAS tackles criminality, helps save lives and keeps people and communities safe.
We are really pleased to be popping along to Essex Police's community event on Friday 12 January 2024, at St Mary's Church, on Loughton High Road.
Between April 2023 and March 2024, our fixed wing crews were deployed 577 times and flew for 506 hours in support of 39 different police forces.
This report highlights the valuable and unique work of the ground and air crews of the National Police Air Service (NPAS).
NPAS is the UK’s largest non-military operator of onshore helicopters.
Thinking of joining NPAS?We’ve created this FAQ to help answer the most common questions we receive about recruitment, training, and life at NPAS.
Working together for continual air supportNPAS Exeter and Bournemouth crews worked together to provide a series of seamless handovers, ensuring Devon and Cornwall Police could be confident of the continual aerial containment of a high-risk firearms scene.
LIVE:NPAS Line Pilots (Barton, Birmingham, Husbands Bosworth, Lippitts Hill, Redhill)(Closing date 27 July 2025)
Response times
In 2022/23, our aircraft crews were deployed to 4,621 priority one incidents.
These are when there is an immediate threat to a life, a crime is in action or there is a national or terrorism incident.
The average time to reach a scene from receiving a call was 12 minutes, 18 seconds.
The National Police Air Service (NPAS) is leading one of the UK’s most ambitious trials of uncrewed aerial systems (UAS) in support of policing - working in partnership with the National Air Traffic Control Service (NATS) and the Civil Aviation Authority