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Narcotics Affairs Section

Aviation

Police Aviation ($71M)

The DIRAN Air Service is the largest police air fleet in Latin America. Air Service support represents almost 50% of NAS direct funds. NAS is responsible for U.S. Department of State/INL owned air assets operated and maintained by a U.S. government contractor.

  • 61 Helicopters
  • 21 Fixed-Wing
  • 74% Operability Rate
  • Maintenance Capability Increasing
  • Pilots and Gunners Colombian

NAS continues to support DIRAN's aviation unit ARAVI (Área de Aviación), comprised of 19 fixed-wing and 61 rotary-wing aircraft. In addition to counter-narcotics missions, ARAVI has, used U.S. government-supported assets for humanitarian missions; targeted intelligence gathering; and antiterrorism, anti-kidnapping, high value target, and public order missions. As part of nationalization efforts, the U.S. government continues to help ARAVI train more pilots and mechanics within Colombia and perform more maintenance and repairs in Colombia. ARAVI now has a modern state-of-the-art maintenance hangar to perform depot-level maintenance on the 31 Huey IIs in Colombia. Two of seven American technical advisors have been replaced with Colombians in an ongoing process of nationalization. With U.S. government assistance, ARAVI began training for Night Vision Goggle (NVG) use in 2005.

Colombian Army Aviation ($123M)

  • 78 Helicopters
  • 340 Pilots trained
  • 180 Mechanics trained
  • 74% operability rate
  • Program 5 years old
  • All gunners Colombian
The Plan Colombia Helicopter Program (PCHP), consisting of UH-1N, UH-1H II, UH-60, and K-Max helicopters, supported the CD Brigade and, when available, provided support to human rights-certified Colombian military and public security forces.

In 2005, PCHP aircraft flew 29,054 hours, carried 36,782 passengers, transported 1,788,400 pounds of cargo, and conducted 188 medical evacuations of military and civilian personnel. PCHP also participated in a number of high value target missions. Nationalization of the PCHP has continued, with more than 100 contract American pilots and mechanics replaced by Colombian Army (COLAR) personnel in 2005.