Private helos in the same air space without proper coordination sounds like a real tragedy about to happen. Helos are best used in a coordinated manner with ground troops, working not only in aerial location and spotting, but whisking ground pounders into remote locations for searching.

It is really wonderful to be deposited, early in the morning, in the midst of your operations area, and immediately get to productive work, bright eyed and bushy tailed.

I am basically reminiscing about an earlier era (70s to 80s) when situations were not as complicated as they can be today. Back then, there was essentially no competition with private firms.

Ground search is really important in SAR, but is even more effective when coordinated with good helo operations . Many lives have been saved because of swift helo transport to a distant ER.