In the past....the Maryland State. Police Aviation Unit had a similar experience with a Bell 206....were the aircraft crashed and was not missed resulting in a major change in their Safety Environment.
A large UK based helicopter operator lost a Bell 412 during a night emergency call out in one of its overseas operations and its failure to arrive at the destination was triggered when the receiving hospital called asking for an ETA many hours later.
These things happen....and when they do the Operators's Safety Culture should be carefully examined to determine what went wrong and why.....and be fixed.
For a. Police Helicopter being dispatched to participate in a Car Pursuit and not be missed does sound a very odd thing to happen.
Someone must have called for the dispatch of the airborne unit and should have been expecting a call from the Aircraft.
Standard practice would have the Crew reporting landing and the location and the crew reporting their status to dispatch. (End of Duty, Standby, or return to ground patrol).
But.....as we are reading only the initial news article.....perhaps there are some missing details that might frame s better narrative.
Crab, the on-file photo shows the aircraft having a FLIR System. mounted beneath the nose of the aircraft.
Perhaps over time information re NVG's will be found.
Of note.....there is also a Louisiana State Police Aviation Unit based at Baton Rouge as well (based upon a google search...but no first. hand knowledge).
Last edited by SASless; 27th Mar 2023 at 12:40.