The Aviation Police Service is part of the Infrastructure Service (DINFRA) within the National Unit of the Dutch police. [1]

Aviation Police Service is stationed at Schiphol-East. At the moment there are flown with 6 x EC135 and 3 x AW139 helicopters. In addition to providing air support to the regional police units, the aviation police also has an Aviation Supervision department. The latter is mainly concerned with compliance with Aviation legislation by users of Dutch airports and users of Dutch airspace.

Several planes have been in use over the years.

Below is a list of the aircraft types that have been in use over time:

Eurocopter EC-135
In 2009, the seven Bölkow BO-105s were replaced by six Eurocopter EC-135s with registrations PH-PXA (call sign: 'Police01'), PH-PXB ('Police02'), PH-PXC ('Police03'), PH -PXD ('Police04'), PH-PXE ('Police05') and PH-PXF ('Police06')

Agusta Westland AW139
In 2009, two larger Agusta Westland AW139s with PH-PXY ("Police25") and PH-PXZ ("Police26") registrations were purchased.
A third Augusta Westland AW139 came into service in March 2019. This is registered as PH-PXX ("Police 24").

Dornier 228 - 212

The Coastguard in the Netherlands is a service that is made possible through the collaboration of various ministries, but operates under the direct responsibility of the Ministry of Defence. The Coast Guard has, among other things, a police task in the field of environmental checks at sea. Two Dornier 228-212 aircraft are used for this. These aircraft will be replaced by PAL Aerospace Dash 6 aircraft. The first will probably be delivered in spring 2022

Agusta Westland 189
The Coast Guard will receive 2 helicopters of the type Agusta Westland 189 (AW189). Bristow flies and maintains the aircraft for a period of 10 years. The aircraft can accommodate 19 people excluding crew. The crew on board consists of 2 pilots, a winch operator, a rescue swimmer and an ambulance nurse as standard.
The first of the two new helicopters for the Coast Guard was recently delivered. In the photo, the device still has a British registration. The aircraft will remain in England until November to train personnel. After that, the device comes to the Netherlands. One helicopter will fly from Den Helder Airport, the other from  Airport.Midden Zeeland

De Havilland Canada DHC-8

On September 22, 2022, the first new coastguard aircraft landed at Schiphol. The new aircraft has modern equipment on board to perform our tasks even better. The coming period will be devoted to conducting test flights. The crews also train with the new type of aircraft and the systems on board.

During test flights, various scenarios are performed to check the aircraft and to ensure that it meets all requirements. Once everything is completed, the device will replace the current Dornier 228 aircraft and the Dash 8 will be operational. The second Dash 8 is expected to arrive in October. Until then, we will use a Beechkraft King Air aircraft as a back-up aircraft.

The Dash 8 aircraft are specially adapted to the requirements of the Coast Guard. The aerial officers, also known as aerial observers, will have two workplaces on board with a special mission system. With this they operate the sensors and communication equipment to perform their tasks. The aerial officers come from Rijkswaterstaat, Customs, the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee and the Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA). Of these, there are always 2 on board.

Compared to the predecessor, the Dash 8 can fly longer. The aircraft also has a surface radar, which gives us a quick overview of, for example, shipping traffic day and night. The aircraft has a hatch on the underside of the fuselage (known as a 'drop hatch') that allows the crew to drop a life raft, smoke markers and date buoys. The smoke markers can be used in search and rescue operations to make a location at sea visible to others. A date buoy floats in the sea and reports position, water and air temperature.

The new maritime patrol aircraft regularly flies along the Dutch coast and over the sea. Just like its predecessors, the aircraft have Schiphol-East as their home base. The aircraft are leased from and maintained by ISR Support Europe. They are also responsible for supplying the pilots.