The last operational mission of the AB-205 helicopters of the 5th Aviation Regiment of the “Rigel” Army, flight department of the “Friuli” Aircraft Brigade, which has now completed the transition to tactical transport helicopters, took place in recent days. NH-90.
The helicopters flew over the Casarsa della Delizia base for the last time, heading towards Viterbo for the “Chelotti” military heliport, home of the Army Aviation Training Center.
Thus ends, after 51 years of flight service, the parable of the helicopter that marked the most important moments in the history of the Friulian department, as happened in 1976, when the AB-205s of the “Rigel” proved to be fundamental for the success of the complex rescue operations for the population hit by the earthquake and contributed, with numerous missions of air transport of materials, to the reconstruction of the areas destroyed by the earthquake.
The first example of AB-205 landed on the “Francesco Baracca” airport of Casarsa in 1969, and since then the AB-205s have always guaranteed operational support both in Italy, in rescue and emergency activities, and abroad in the ‘scope of the various military operations, carried out by the Italian Armed Forces since 1982, in Lebanon, Namibia, Somalia, Kurdistan, Ex-Yugoslavia, Kosovo and Afghanistan.