Training and Standards Section – professional standards and development
Engineering Section – maintenance of GFS aircraft and equipment
Quality Section – compliance to operational standards
Administration Section – administration, human resources, finance, supplies, etc...
Helicopters can land on 5 highways in Hong Kong to attend to road related recovery operations. For long-range search and rescue operations, the GFS initially uses fixed wing aircraft which then guides helicopters to the location.
Air ambulance service response time – 20 minutes / 30 minutes
Search and rescue callout time 0700-2159 - – 1hr / 1hr 40m
Search and rescue callout time 2200-0659 - – 2hr
For SARs outside 50 nm / 92.5 km – add 30mins per 50 nm
The fleet currently comprises: Paint scheme for Jetstream and Super Puma is white and Safety orange, two grey tones for the EC 155 and some of the Super Puma to support police operations. The H175s have an overall grey livery with a light grey stripe on the tile broom. Prior to 2002, the fleet colours consisted of:
white and Safety orange
blue, white and red – mostly the S-76 and were the colours of the RHKAAF and similar to the scheme used by the Her Majesty's Coastguard
As the GFS is not a police or para-military unit, they are unarmed. Armed officers of the Hong Kong Police Force fly with the GFS on occasion.
Personnel
GFS employs 238 personnel:
178 commissioned/disciplined personnel
60 civilian personnel
Most of the pilots in the GFS were localised prior to the handover in 1997, as former RAF and other British military personnel departed Hong Kong. The GFS is led by a controller, who reports to the Secretary for Security. The current controller is Captain Michael CP Chan. Other senior officers of the GFS are:
Prior to the creation of the GFS, the ranks within the Royal Hong Kong Auxiliary Air Force were the same as the RAF. The late 1980s and early 1990s saw the transition to local staff in the RHKAAF in preparation for the civil transfer to the GFS role. For details and insignia of the ranking, see Ranking of personnel of the GFS are civilian aviation roles and are as follows:
1 Bauhinia and 1 Laurel Wreath with Crossed Feather
Captain Brian Cluer - former RAF fighter pilot and General Manager of Operations, Cathay Pacific
Captain Brian Butt Yiu-ming - formerly with Royal Hong Kong Auxiliary Air Force and Chief Inspector with Hong Kong Police specializing in the counterfeit detection
Crest
The current crest of the force was adopted in 1997, prior to which the Hong Kong Coat of Arms was used on GFS aircraft:
Bauhinia
Crest with a Chinese dragon, propeller and wording GFS
Motto contain the wording "政府飛行服務隊" with a pair of wings provides a bilingual logo to the agency that was lacking in the previous agency
The TVB drama "Always Ready" was filmed inside GFS HQ and starred Ekin Cheng.
Incidents
26 August 2003 – A Eurocopter EC 155 B1 crashed on a hill at Pak Kung Au near Tung Chung on Lantau Island killing two aircrew.
27 December 2010 – One of the GFS's Eurocopter Super Puma Mk II helicopters ditched in Shing Mun Reservoir after the loss of its number 2 engine. It was in the process of collecting water from the reservoir to drop on a hill fire. None of the three crew members were injured. The Civil Aviation Department said on the following day it had retrieved the flight data recorder. Pending a final report, an interim bulletin issued in February 2012 reported that the number two engine was correctly shut down automatically by the engine control unit because the turbine had begun to overspeed, because there appear to be no fault in the turbine or the fuel systems the overspeed is possibly the result of a disconnection of the engine from the main gearbox because of wear to the freewheel unit that connect the two. The Helicopter was rebuilt by the engineering team after it was recovered from the reservoir.
