About Us

Philips Search and Rescue Trust (PSRT) is New Zealand’s largest rescue helicopter trust, operating rescue helicopters throughout the central North Island.

Dispatched through the 111-call system, our rapid response rescue helicopters bring life-saving equipment, rescue personnel, and trauma-trained medics directly to the patient.

Powered by an experienced crew of pilots, crewmen, intensive care paramedics, and flight nurses, in a life or death situation it is this speed and agility that can make all the difference, with patients able to receive urgent treatment while en route to a medical facility.

Always rescue ready, your rescue helicopter is an essential emergency service in your community.

Your rescue helicopter can be called to any of the following missions:

• Search and rescue missions
• Operations requiring a winch
• Night operations
• Time-critical inter-hospital transfers
• Armed Offender Squad / Land Search and Rescue / NZ Fire

When needed, your rescue helicopter will be there, 24/7, 365 days a year.

Westpac Air Ambulance

PSRT also operate the nationally recognised Westpac Air Ambulance, an accredited provider of Level 1 and 2 aero-medical transport services. Flying bedside to bedside, the highly experienced medical crew can accommodate up to two patients, non-stop, to any location in New Zealand.

Find out more at westpacairambulance.org.nz

Philips Search and Rescue Trust all began with one single act of compassion.

In 1985, two senior Philips executives and a pilot lost their lives in a light aircraft accident, just south of Turangi. Philips instigated at that time, what was and probably still is, New Zealand’s largest privately organised search, which eventually found the lost aircraft.

After their loss, it became apparent to Philips that if a rescue service had been available, their executives and pilot may have survived. So, as a legacy to the country, Philips endowed what was to become Philips Search and Rescue Trust (PSRT), with the objective of providing the highest possible standard of air rescue and emergency helicopters to serve the people of the central North Island and wider areas of New Zealand.

Flight operations commenced in 1985, with a single engine, part-time helicopter based in Taupo, which quickly gained a reputation as an effective operational unit, particularly within the specialist search and rescue field.

In October 1987, PSRT was made a dedicated, full-time rescue service, and is now the charity responsible for the North Islands largest group of rescue helicopters.

Over 30 years on from that fatal flight, PSRT continues to provide rescue helicopter services, free of charge to patients, funded largely by the communities we operated in.

Over 30,000 people owe their lives to PSRT rescue helicopters.