REGIONAL — The wilderness of northern Minnesota draws people in with its quiet waters, endless forest, and sense of escape. But when something goes wrong deep in that isolation – a fall, a stroke, a broken leg miles from the nearest road – getting help quickly becomes a great challenge. That’s where the Minnesota State Patrol’s new rescue helicopter, Trooper 7, is already proving its value.
On Aug. 11, Trooper 7 and the Minnesota Air Rescue Team (MART), made up of State Patrol and St. Paul Fire Department members, responded to a call from a remote campsite along the Canadian border in Voyageurs National Park. After planning and flying north, the team located the site and conducted a fixed hoist rescue straight into the aircraft. The patient was safely lifted from the campsite and flown to International Falls for medical care.
A few weeks later, on Sept. 7, a 70-year-old visitor from Colorado sent a distress signal from the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness near the Stuart River portage northwest of Ely. MART joined forces with the St. Louis County Sheriff’s Office Rescue Squad, Morse Township Fire Department, Ely Area Ambulance and Life Link Helicopter Service to reach the injured man, who had a possible broken leg. The MART team transferred the man to the Life Link chopper and he was flown to a Duluth hospital, where his injuries were determined not to be life-threatening.
Lt. Craig Benz, chief pilot for the Minnesota State Patrol flight section, said the new helicopter, a twin-engine Bell 429, is equipped to handle missions faster, more safely, and with far more flexibility than the patrol’s older aircraft.
While Trooper 7 is a technological leap forward, Benz is quick to point out that it’s just one part of a broader public safety system, one built on partnership, experience, and trust. He emphasized that the helicopter is available to assist a wide range of local agencies across Minnesota, from sheriff’s offices and EMS teams to volunteer fire departments and search-and-rescue squads.
MART partnership
“The Minnesota Air Rescue Team, which is known by its acronym MART, is made up of two organizations,” Benz said. “One is the Minnesota State Patrol, and the other is the St. Paul Fire Department – operations wise, it’s the State Patrol operating the aircraft and the St. Paul Fire Department as the rescue side of the organization.”
The MART program began around 2010 as a collaborative experiment.
“(The patrol) had attempted for a couple of years to have some type of rescue program,” Benz said. “The St. Paul Fire Department and the State Patrol aviation unit started talking and came up with this partnership and got it to the foundation where it’s at now.”
The partnership made logistical sense. The State Patrol’s flight section is based at the St. Paul Airport, and Saint Paul Fire Department personnel were close by, ready to board quickly, and available around the clock. That proximity and 24/7 coverage made them a practical and reliable choice.
About two dozen St. Paul firefighters are currently part of the MART team.
“It’s a mix of EMTs as well as firefighters, to provide the medical side of it, and then also the fire/land/rescue side,” Benz said.
Faster, safer, and off
the ground
One of the most important features of the Bell 429 is a side-mounted hoist system capable of lifting up to 600 pounds that allows rescuers to lift victims directly into the cabin, no landing required.
That’s a huge improvement over the older Bell 407 aircraft, which required the crew to land, rig a rope system, and then carry patients under the helicopter on a static line.
“Now, instead of doing the short haul method, they can lower and raise up our rescue specialist, and then we actually bring the patient or the victim up into the aircraft, into the helicopter, and fly away,” Benz said. “In the past, those rescues could take up to an hour. Now, they can fly directly overhead without landing first, lower a rescuer and have the victim bundled up and airborne in 10 to 15 minutes.”
Cutting time and saving responders
In northern Minnesota, where dense forest, miles of portages and lakes, and other obstacles can stretch a rescue out over 10 to 12 hours or more, Trooper 7 changes everything.
“It’s the challenge of time. Aircraft are truly time machines,” Benz said. “We can be en route and reach pretty much anywhere in the state in about an hour and a half to two hours.”
Benz emphasized the role Trooper 7 plays in supporting, not replacing, the region’s skilled ground-based rescue crews.
“We rely on our public safety agencies out there operating in the county, like the St Louis County Rescue Squad, which is a tremendous organization which is well-structured, well-funded, well-organized, and truly a jewel of the state. They’re the true organization that leads the rescue. We’re simply supporting those agencies with another tool.”
“These individuals are going out on 10, 12, and sometimes longer, extended type missions,” Benz continued. “There needs to be some type of support network in place, and we help provide part of that support network.”
Eyes in the sky — day or night
Trooper 7 comes equipped with a suite of advanced imaging and mapping tools, including military-grade daytime and infrared cameras, a high-powered searchlight for night operations, and mapping overlays that help crews orient quickly in rugged or remote terrain. The infrared system is especially critical during search operations, detecting heat contrast between a person and the surrounding environment, even in deep woods or low light. That means instead of scanning visually for someone waving their arms, crews can zero in on heat signatures that reveal where someone is lying on the ground, hidden from sight.
Safety is another area where Trooper 7 stands out. Trooper 7’s twin engines offer a critical backup.
“The twin engines allow an additional safety margin,” Benz said. “If we’re in the middle of a hoist and we have a problem with one of our engines, we’ll still be able to lower that individual to the ground as well as land our aircraft. If we lose an engine in a 407, we’re landing immediately — wherever we are, but with this, we can fly safely back to an airport.”
Zero cost to locals
The helicopter was funded by a $14.4 million appropriation approved by the Minnesota Legislature in 2023, which covered not just the aircraft, but also its technology suite, radio systems, and EMS support gear.
“It’s done at no charge to any one of the ground agencies,” Benz said. “It is provided through the Department of Public Safety to keep our citizens safe as well as our ground public safety officers safe. That’s the true number one goal – to try to make sure we can do the job we need to do, and all get home at the end of the evening.”
That support isn’t limited to rescues. The State Patrol can also use Trooper 7 to assist in traffic enforcement, pursuits, and criminal searches.
“When other agencies across Minnesota need help, whether it’s a fire, a missing person, or an aerial search, they call us,” Benz said. “We don’t take over scenes. We’re there to help and give them tools they don’t have.”