ARLINGTON, Virginia — With an aging aircraft fleet under scrutiny and the phase-out of an older airframe, the Coast Guard has stopped sending its cutters to sea in the Arctic with helicopters onboard.

That’s according to Vice Adm. Peter Gautier, the service’s deputy commandant for operations. He described the move as a way the service is innovating amid budget challenges.

“We know we’ve got limitations, don’t we?” Time and resources are tight, so this drives the Coast Guard to do things like operate differently in the Arctic, Gautier said at an event organized by CNA in December.

“The number of cutters that we have is lower than it traditionally had been,” Gautier said, and “the type of helicopter was not appropriate for Arctic operations. And so, we are now land-basing in forward operating locations across Alaska.”

Officials with Coast Guard headquarters said the change was made in summer 2024 as Air Station Kodiak phased out four retiring MH-65 Dolphin helicopters and transitioned to the newer MH-60T Jayhawk. The base now operates six Jayhawks and will eventually have nine, officials said.

“Coast Guard District 17 and Air Station Kodiak maximized aviation forward operating sites staffed by shipboard landing capable MH-60T crews in Kotzebue, Cold Bay and Prince William Sound, a model that streamlines search-and-rescue response and enables flexible movement of the helicopter crews in support of deployed Coast Guard cutters and seasonal mission demands,” officials said in a statement provided to National Defense.

The Jayhawk’s additional range, lift and weather resistance “provide more robust area coverage” around the Bering Sea, the officials added. No other changes to cutter operations have been made, they said.

A Government Accountability Office report released in April 2024 found the Coast Guard’s Jayhawk helicopters had not met the service’s 71 percent availability target in any year from 2018 to 2022, and while they stayed below a 24 percent target for time unavailable due to maintenance, they exceeded the 5 percent ceiling for time spent not mission capable due to lack of aircraft parts.

The aircraft, which entered service in 1990, started reaching the end of its original service life in 2021 and is now undergoing a $58 billion fleet consolidation and service life extension planned to be complete by 2032, the GAO report said. ND