SE-HON

Information

This aircraft was constructed in 1975 and it spent its first 13 years in the US. It was imported to Sweden by the Bell dealer Ostermans Aero in 1988 and put in service with the Swedish Defence Materiel Administration (FMV). The aircraft was operated at the military Vidsel Test Range in northern Sweden with a civil registration until 1994, when it was transferred into the military system as a "HKP 6C" (the only C model that ever existed) with the registration 06593 and the callsign V-94.
The helicopter was moved to Försökscentralen (FC) at 4 Hkpbat. in Linköping in 2001, but as the fleet of HKP6s was retired in 2003-2004 this helicopter eventually found its way to Patria Ostermans AB (later Patria Helicopters) at Arlanda Airport.

Patria purchased the helicopter and put on the civil registry as SE-HON again. It was soon acquired by Roslagens Helikopterflyg in Norrtälje (early 2004), where it came to be used by the company's flight school Proflight Nordic AB. The helicopter is mainly used for flight training, but it is also used for various commercial operations for Roslagens Helikopterflyg.


Helicopter heist - “Helikopterrånet”
In the early morning of 23 September 2009 a Jet Ranger (SE-HON) was stolen from Roslagens Helikopterflyg’s hangar at Mellingeholm Airfield in Norrtälje. The helicopter was flown to Frescati/Stora Skuggan moments prior to 05:00 in the morning. It picked up some equipment and continued to the G4S Cash Deposit in Västberga, a few kilometers southwest of downtown Stockholm. The stolen helicopter landed on the roof of the deposit building, inserted three robbers with ladders and weapons, took off to wait for the money to be collected, returned to pick up the gang and the money, and left to the southwest; all in roughly 30 minutes. In the meantime the police set up a perimeter around the robbery in progress, but they were unable to interfere with the helicopter due to the risk of harming innocent bystanders. The Swedish Police Wings’s own EC135 helicopters were grounded after two boxes with dummy explosives had been placed outside the entrance doors to the hangar at Myttinge Heliport the same morning.
The stolen helicopter left people and money at two locations in the suburbs – Draget/Norsborg and Kaananbadet/Grimsta – before it continued to Skavlöten/Arninge in the north of Stockholm. It was then left on a field near the forest.

Aftermath
The helicopter was found abandoned, without any damages, around 08:00 in the morning. The heist became an instant top story worldwide, with prominent media like CNN, BBC and AP reporting about the robbery. The robbers got away with an estimated 39 million SEK, approx €3,86 million EUR at Sep 2009 exchange rate.

Returning the helicopter to service
Following a full scan by the bomb squad (which caused the only known damage to the helicopter), and an external on-scene investigation by the forensics, the helicopter was transported to Patria Helicopter’s maintenance station at Arlanda Airport for the internal investigation. The helicopter was soon returned to Roslagens Helikopterflyg, which set up extensive maintenance checks of the airframe and engine prior to returning the helicopter to its service as a flight trainer in Norrtälje.

Suspects
Several people were arrested within a few days, including a 34-year-old experienced private helicopter pilot that lived in the Stockholm region. On 7 October 2010 Södertörn District Court sentenced two people, one of them being the pilot, to seven years in prison for aggravated robbery. Four people were convicted for complicity to aggravated robbery and sentenced in a range of 2-5 years in prison. One person was convicted for protecting criminals and he was sentenced to imprisonment for one year. Three previously suspected defendants were set free.
On 16 February 2011 the Svea Court of Appeal strengthened three of the District Court’s verdicts, including a sentence of eight years in prison for the pilot instead of seven. The pilot appealed to the Supreme Court, but the plea was declined on 16 October 2013.

Echoes of the heist
The event on 23 September 2009 was the first robbery involving a helicopter in Swedish history. It was, to Nordic Rotors’ knowledge, the third time a helicopter was stolen in Sweden. The first case involved a Hughes 500 (SE-HTG) in 1991, and the second more unclear case involved a Bell 206 (SE-HVE) in 2004.

The helicopter heist caused quite some commotion regarding the Swedish Police Wing’s inability to take off from its temporary (2005-2009) helicopter base at Myttinge/Värmdö due to the suspected bombs that had easily been placed adjacent to the hangar prior to the robbery. The helicopters were instantly moved to Arlanda Airport, where the perimeter protection was deemed adequate. The National Police took the formal decision to establish a permanent helicopter base at Arlanda on 29 February 2012.

At least two books have been written following the spectacular heist:
"Helikopterrånet inifrån" by Samuel Brissman (ISBN 978-91-6-373626-1)
"Helikopterpiloten" by Håkan Lahger (ISBN 978-91-1-304832-1 )