Cropdusting pilot another police eye in the sky

Cropdusting pilot Charlie Tootell provides ad hoc air support to police on the trail of bandits and looters running riot.

‘A quintessential community-minded person’ … pilot Charlie Tootell with constables Kat Smith and Patrick Bourke. Picture: Jane Dempster

In the event of a high-speed pursuit or a person lost in the outback, it would take hours for a police helicopter to fly from its headquarters in Sydney to a tiny, isolated town such as Mungindi on the NSW-Queensland border.

Luckily, local police officers have Charlie Tootell, a crop-­dusting pilot with a fleet of aircraft. He can be airborne in his Robinson R22 helicopter in less than 10 minutes.

With a UHF radio and a ­mobile phone wired to his headset, Mr Tootell often provides ad hoc air support to officers on the trail of bandits and looters running riot through the region.

“It’s not about anything else other than we’re sick of having our stuff stolen,” the 43-year-old told The Australian. “It’s a small community and everyone gets in and helps.”

Last month, Mr Tootell was instrumental in chasing down a fugitive parolee who stole a car and led police on a pursuit spanning several hundred kilometres. Ironically, Mr Tootell tracked the same criminal two years earlier during a separate operation that led to his imprisonment.

Mr Tootell is just one of many pilots willing to provide a de facto surveillance capability for districts spanning thousands of kilometres of desolate landscape.

In these remote locales, criminals are sometimes better acquainted with the geography than out-of-town officers — but they are no match for members of their own community alive to odd-coloured cars and every passing face.

“Some of these guys get put away, they get out, and they come back because they know the area, so they can get around,” Mr Tootell said.

Scott Tanner, Superintendent of the New England Police Area Command, said strict rules prevented members of the public from putting themselves in harm’s way while assisting police. But if they were already airborne, in the case of Mr Tootell, and willing to keep an eye out, such assistance always proves invaluable.

In May 2018, two criminals embarked on a methamphetamine bender across Mungindi — pronounced Mung-en-dye — and surrounding towns. Night after night they broke into isolated properties, stealing guns, cars, and fuel, causing families on rural properties to flee into town. While tactical police and highway patrol officers conducted a ground search, it was Mr Tootell, watching from the air, who radioed vital intelligence until a PolAir chopper arrived from Sydney.

“When the vehicle was getting away from police, he’d be able to give their location back to us. And when PolAir came on the scene, he provided a detailed handover,” Superintendent Tanner said.

“He’s a terrific man — a quintessential community-minded person.” It is physically impossible to police such wide expanses of country without community support, according to Superintendent Andrew Hurst, commander of the Central North Police District, a neighbouring rural command that spans 170,000sq km — about the size of Denmark.

When a man went missing near Wanaaring, one of the command’s most isolated sections, it was a farmer with a fixed-wing aircraft who tracked him down, saving hundreds of man hours and untold expenditure. “He was up there for about an hour and he was able to find this fellow,” Superintendent Hurst said.

It’s difficult to pinpoint why this spirit of co-operation prevails in the country rather than the city, said NSW Deputy Police Commissioner Gary Worboys, whose career has taken him from rural commands to, in his most recent job, a glass-office tower in Sydney’s CBD.

“Remote policing relies on its community,” said Mr Worboys. “In the city, so many people don’t even know who their next-door neighbour is.”