All Nippon Helicopter Orders a Third AW139

AgustaWestland, and Mitsui Bussan Aerospace, the official distributor for the AW139 medium twin helicopter in Japan, announced that All Nippon Helicopter (ANH) has signed a contract for a third AW139 to perform electronic news gathering (ENG) missions. ANH is conducting ENG operations exclusively for Nippon Housou Kyoukai (NHK), Japanese National Broadcasting corporation and one of the most important in this field worldwide. This additional AW139 is expected to be delivered to Japan in 2013 then undergoing mission customization with operational readiness to be achieved in 2014.

The selection of the first AW139 by ANH few years ago marked the entrance of this model into the Japanese civil helicopter market and the first AW139 for electronic news gathering operations in the world. This additional order provides further evidence of customer’s satisfaction with the type for ENG applications. Thanks to the state-of-the-art avionics, the best performance and the roomiest unobstructed cabin in the medium twin category, the AW139 has greatly increased customer’s mission effectiveness in terms of speed, range, endurance and comfort.

The AW139 has already found success in Japan also for law enforcement and coast guard roles and AgustaWestland sees significant future business opportunities in Japan for the AW139 in both the civil and government markets. Also, the company is committed to offering the best solutions for ENG applications as an increasingly important market in Japan. With almost 170 customers from around 50 countries having purchased over 630 helicopters so far, the AW139 has rapidly become the helicopter of choice in the medium twin class for a number of applications including offshore transport, EMS/SAR, VIP/corporate transport, law enforcement and homeland security, utility and government purposes. All Nippon Helicopter (ANH) operates electronic news gathering helicopters exclusively for NHK. Founded in 1986, ANH has 12 bases throughout Japan, from Sapporo to Okinawa, providing crew and maintenance technicians 24 hours per day on stand-by for urgent news gathering missions.
Agusta Westland press release