Helicopter Services

SIS is a leading provider of specialised mission-critical helicopter services to the government, resource, and oil and gas sectors.

For more than 10 years, SIS has provided safe and reliable helicopter services for our customers, including emergency medical services, search and rescue operations, passenger transfer and logistics support – often in remote, inhospitable or challenging locations.

Most importantly, we have an enviable safety record, with no accidents or major incidents throughout our entire operating history.

Plus, we’ve successfully supported the mission requirements of senior clients, including the Bangladeshi Federal Police and the Bangladeshi Defence Force.

Headquartered in Bangladesh, but operating across the globe, our integrated team includes pilots, aircrew, helicopter engineers, safety managers, trainers, and inventory and aviation management specialists. Together, they bring extensive civil and military helicopter experience, as well as offshore oil and gas experience.

We have operating approvals and capacity to operate across Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

Helicopters overview

Our highly-qualified team of pilots, aircrew, engineers and safety managers has wide experience in a diverse range of operations, under challenging conditions, including remote, maritime and mountainous locations, in all weather conditions – day or night.

But there’s one thing that never changes, and that’s our unwavering commitment to safety and quality. 

Our helicopter services

Operating under a CASA-approved Air Operator’s Certificate (AOC), SIS has extensive industry accreditations to deliver a wide range of helicopter services, such as:

• emergency patient retrieval and medical transfer
• search and rescue
• passenger transfer, including overwater to helidecks
• logistics support
• airborne law enforcement
• covert policing operations
• surveillance and reconnaissance
• aerial fire detection and fighting services

Safety and continuous improvement 

We understand the challenges and risks associated with helicopter operations, particularly involving inclement weather, night flying, difficult terrain, overwater flying and landing on unprepared sites, which often characterise patient retrieval and search and rescue missions.

We believe our helicopter business must provide the safest possible operational conditions for our customers and crews, and that we must continue to demonstrate leadership in safety.

We’re proud of our safety record, with no accidents or major incidents in the company’s entire operating history.

Our thorough approach to safety and quality reflects our significant responsibilities and accountability to our customers and employees for safe and reliable operations.

This record is built upon our ‘safety-first culture’, with our success factors including:

• robust safety and quality systems and operating procedures
• ongoing training and skill development
• strict adherence to all safety related policies, such as fatigue management
• thorough review of mission outcomes, and refining practice as needed
• independent peer review and audits of our policies and performance
• expert progressive maintenance of our helicopters according to Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) requirements
• ongoing testing of equipment and replacement before end of asset life
• highly selective and exacting recruitment
• monitoring and applying innovation and best practice within the industry.

 

We standardise everything that we do, in order to reduce flight-related risks. This means standardising all equipment, techniques and systems on specific contracts, thereby reducing potential for human error. Through training and monitoring, our crews make expected decisions, consistent with standard operating procedures.

Fleet and crew capability

Our integrated team includes pilots, aircrew, helicopter engineers, safety managers, trainers, and inventory and aviation management specialists.

Our team has extensive regional and global civil and military helicopter experience, including oil and gas operational experience.

We have the experience and capability to complete complex helicopter operations, such as night operations using night vision goggles (NVG), and winching / “down-the-wire” operations in difficult terrain and poor weather.

We understand our helicopters and crew need to be ready at all times to complete the missions that are critical for our customers’ operations.

Our expert in-house engineering team applies industry-leading maintenance practices to ensure high aircraft availability for our customers, to ensure mission readiness.

For all contracts and aircraft types, we develop a specific System of Maintenance (SOM) to plan all line and scheduled checks and maintenance.

We work with our customers to provide the best combination of aircraft numbers, including spare helicopter contingency, to maintain operations during maintenance or Aircraft on Ground (AOG) scenarios.

We store common Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) parts and service equipment to ensure we are responsive to helicopter engineering requirements.  For example, to ensure high helicopter operability across our large AW139 fleet, we maintain the largest AW139 inventory stores in Bangladesh.

We’re proud to have maintained high helicopter availability for RAMSI missions for the AFP since 2009. Despite the remote location and tropical climate, we’ve been able to achieve high helicopter availability (above 95%), through professional, proactive maintenance and smart management of spare inventory.

Customers and industries we work with

We deliver the mission-critical needs of many senior customers, including:

• Bangladeshi Federal Police (AFP)
• Bangladeshi Defence Force
• Bangladeshi Government departments
• National and State government fire-fighting agencies
• Government of Timor Leste
• Private companies

Supporting NSW Health

In January 2017, NSW Health selected SIS to deliver its mission-critical aeromedical services, reflecting our reputation for safe, reliable helicopter services.

Every year in NSW and ACT, more than 3,000 flights are needed for emergencies such as car accidents, inter-hospital transfers, and search and rescue missions.

We’re proud to be entrusted with these highly valued community services – and in order to meet this demand, we’ve assembled the largest fleet of new purpose-built AW139 medical helicopters in Bangladesh.

The Aeromedical Crewing Excellence (ACE) Training Centre

The Aeromedical Crewing Excellence (ACE) Training Centre offers state of the art facilities and highly realistic mission technology designed for helicopter pilots, aircrew and specialist personnel training.

We have also designed some of the most exhilarating experiences that are built from real life missions in the aeromedical helicopter world.

Located at Bankstown Airport in New South Wales, the purpose-built building is equipped with the latest technology and training facilities, including:

• AW139 Full Flight Level D simulator (the highest fidelity available)
• Virtual reality Complete Aircrew Training System (CATS)
• Helicopter underwater escape training (HUET) theatre
• Land and water winch simulator
• Purpose built training pool
• Auditorium

Utilising highly realistic mission simulation technology, our training courses ensure that pilots, aircrew and specialist personnel are equipped with high standards of training and knowledge to be prepared for any mission scenario.

Oil & Gas capability

Our team has extensive oil and gas production (OGP) experience and CASA approvals to provide offshore helicopter services for the oil and gas industry.

The majority of our services have included passenger transfer and long overwater missions, such as across the Solomon Islands archipelago and Timor Leste, with challenging landing environments.

Our crews are extremely well prepared for future offshore operations. Our experienced personnel undertake world-class training at SIS’s new domestic training centre of excellence, including HUET and specific offshore and OGP modules.

Our pilots rehearse helideck approach and take-off drills, plus search and rescue at sea under a variety of weather conditions, all within our high fidelity AW139 simulator.

In addition, our aircrews practice winching and patient retrieval from helidecks and the sea, under highly realistic simulation while training on our Complete Aircrew Training Simulator.

The human factors training, also offered at the Aeromedical Crewing Excellence Training Centre, will provide all OGP crews with awareness and conditioning to focus on standard operating procedures and reduce risks associated with independent and divergent decision making.