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.