Police confirmed the new chopper’s expected arrival time on Friday. “As it stands, the second helicopter is scheduled to arrive in the Cayman Islands following all servicing and pre-delivery checks at the start of December 2019. It might be helpful to note that the additional personnel required to facilitate the deployment of the second helicopter have now been employed by RCIPS,” the police said in response to queries from the Cayman Compass. Police added that included in the new personnel is the RCIPS’s first female pilot, Elaine Hunter. She commenced her employment with the RCIPS Air Operations Unit earlier this month, and one of her first missions with the crew involved providing assistance to the hurricane-struck Bahamas. The new helicopter will replace the EC135 chopper, which was damaged beyond economic repair in February this year, when it malfunctioned on liftoff at the Owen Roberts International Airport. The tail struck the ground in the incident. Nobody was injured. That helicopter was sent to the United States for a damage assessment in May. Government has since received an insurance settlement of $2.6 million for the damaged aircraft. Earlier this year, Cayman received another helicopter – an Airbus H145, which was purchased for a little over US$11 million. The United Kingdom contributed about 25% of the purchase price of that helicopter. Police confirmed that the cost of the new helicopter, which will be the same make and model as the current one, will be fully borne by the Cayman Islands government. Since the EC135 was damaged, the H145 chopper was utilised in March during the royal visit of Prince Charles and his wife Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall. It has also been used in a number of medical evacuations and in the hurricane-relief efforts in the Bahamas.