THE police helicopter took off an average of two and a half times a day last year to attend incidents in Oxfordshire.

The crew were called out on 906 occasions in the county in 2009 – 118 more than the year before.

Their presence resulted in 80 arrests and they helped officers on the ground make a further 75. They also evacuated 12 casualties and recovered £108,000 of lost or stolen property.

From burglaries in progress to car chases, the helicopter is scrambled whenever the crew can help from their bird’s eye view in the sky.

They can be hovering above a front door in Milton Keynes, or evacuating a casualty from a crash on the A34 within minutes.

Unit executive officer Doug Mackay said the helicopter’s “bread and butter” jobs were vehicle pursuits, burglaries in progress, people making off from police officers and finding missing people.

With a heat-sensitive camera fitted at the front of the aircraft and a giant searchlight, it can pinpoint criminals on the run, keep pace with speeding cars, and help cordon off areas in dangerous situations.

Tactical flight officer Pc Doug Foster, 45, said: “We had an old boy with Alzheimer’s who had gone walking off. We managed to get a bit of a track as to where he was walking and we concentrated our search on some open ground to the east of Banbury.

“It was absolutely freezing and it was late at night and we found him, but he was so cold we couldn’t see below his knees with our thermal camera. He was literally hours from death.”

The team have helped ground officers at several high profile incidents over the year, including hovering above woodland hours before 16-year-old Alexander Codrington shot himself in woods near his west Oxfordshire home in July.

The son of baronet Sir Christopher Codrington, he had been speaking with police on the phone and was said to have just split up from his girlfriend.

Explaining why his team loved their job, Mr Mackay said: “It’s exciting and you can go flying. It’s 90 per cent routine and not particularly exciting, but 10 per cent adrenalin-filled and that’s what makes you want to come to work every day and keep the streets safer and save people’s lives. We know we can make a difference.”