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Some of the original rescue crew at the official launch of the Queensland operation in North Burleigh, Gold Coast, in 1976. The helicopter is a Bell 206B Jet Ranger, VH-FJR .
Westpac Helicopter Service turns 50
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In September, Westpac Life Saver Rescue Helicopter Service turned 50. More than 100,000 missions later, Kim Eberhard, Westpac’s head of group archives, tells its story.
On a mild spring morning on Maroubra beach 50 years ago, Westpac and Surf Life Saving Australia (SLSA) launched one of the first community partnerships in Australian history. Launched on 29 September, 1973, its impetus came from a group of surf lifesavers looking at improving ways of saving lives at risk in the ocean. Ian Badham from the Sydney branch of SLSA took the lead and championed this concept along with the desire of SLSA to save lives. Inspired by rescue helicopter operations it had seen in New Zealand, SLSA needed a partner to get the concept off the ground in Sydney, so to speak. Ian and SLSA met with Brian Chaseling in the public relations team of Westpac, then known as the Bank of New South Wales. Being a keen volunteer surf lifesaver, Chaseling knew SLSA was onto a winning idea, convincing his high-level colleagues that the bank needed to get on board.
At the time, the Bank of New South Wales was a 156-year-old institution with little history of community sponsorships. Marking a major departure for what was then a staid institution, Chaseling was able to successfully onboard the new partnership. When the service commenced operations in 1973, it operated on weekends and public holidays during the surf season. In its first season, it performed 75 missions, proving the effectiveness of the search and rescue operations then and into the future.
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The rest, as they say, is history.
At that time, the Westpac Life Saver Rescue Helicopter Service operated one Bell 47 helicopter, a single-rotor single-engine light helicopter. Two seats – one for the pilot and the other for the rescuer; no doors, just a bit of Perspex forming a bubble canopy. Those who were rescued could not even fit inside and instead needed to be fixed to the large floats hanging off the side of the aircraft for an uncomfortable trip back to the safety of shore. As for safety equipment – swimmers, a T-shirt and bare feet would do! In 1982, the Bank of NSW had become Westpac Banking Corporation and the helicopters had evolved, too. By this time, the service had a fleet of helicopters with designs that had dropped the floats and added doors and bases located in Sydney, Newcastle, the Gold Coast, Adelaide and Western Australia.
Today, the Westpac Lifesaver Rescue Helicopter Service is one of the longest-running corporate community partnerships in Australia. Services include those in partnership with Surf Life Saving Australia, as well as the Westpac Rescue Helicopter Northern NSW and Tasmanian Services which are Helicopter Emergency Medical Services (HEMS). The services have been involved in the recovery efforts of pivotal Australian moments, including the Granville train disaster in 1977, the Port Arthur tragedy in 1996, and the Sydney to Hobart tragedy in 1998 to list just a few. With 15 rescue helicopters and one rescue boat in its fleet operating across 13 bases across Australia, the service covers approximately 84 per cent of the population in summer.
The service is multi-faceted and provides a critical community emergency support resource that is distinct to each state and territory, including coastal search and rescue, responding to inland motor vehicle and farming incidents, assisting people in flood and fire incidents, searching for missing bushwalkers, and transferring critically ill patients between hospitals. Proudly, nobody has ever had to pay to be rescued. The sponsorship of the helicopters helped the Bank of New South Wales to shape the new realm of corporate responsibility, giving other organisations courage to do more to challenge the status quo. Over 100,000 missions have been performed to date and it’s allowed to a few people brave enough to challenge the status quo, and to those who have followed since to build a brand that is recognised nationally and around the world.
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