1966: a Coast Guard air wing with one Skymaster

Trinidad and Tobago became independent on 31 August 1962 and its Defence Force dates from 1 June 1962. The air arm came four years later. According to the Defence Force’s Wikipedia account, the Air Wing was formed on 15 February 1966 as part of the Trinidad and Tobago Coast Guard, and was known simply as the Air Wing of the Coast Guard. Its first aircraft, the same account says, was a single Cessna 337 Skymaster in its military O-2A form, flown from 1966 to 1972. The purpose was practical rather than martial: an island state between the Caribbean and the Venezuelan coast needed eyes over its waters, a way to find people lost at sea and an aircraft to carry officials. No source consulted for this page records the name of a first commander or pilot.

1977–2005: a formation of its own, and a new name

In 1977 the Air Wing was separated from the Coast Guard and became a formation of the Defence Force in its own right; in 2005 it was renamed the Trinidad and Tobago Air Guard, the name it carries today. The Defence Force’s own website lists it as one of the Defence Force’s four formations, and its stated tasks are to protect and patrol the national airspace, with transport, search and rescue and liaison as further roles. The Air Guard has produced at least one Chief of Defence Staff: Air Commodore Daryl Daniel, who was promoted to the post in March 2019, and whom the Defence Force website still describes as bringing experience from his career in the Air Guard.

Gazelles, Cessnas and Navajos: the fleet that came and went

The fleet has always been small and has turned over steadily. Wikipedia’s list of former aircraft gives Cessna 402 Utililiners from 1972 to 1998, four Aérospatiale Gazelle helicopters from 1973 to 1995, a Cessna 310 from 1985 to 2011, Cessna 172s from 1991 to 1998 and Piper Navajos from 2000 to 2009. None of those dates comes from an official Air Guard history, and the Defence Force publishes none; the numbers for most types are not known. Wikipedia’s article on the Metroliner adds that the Coast Guard has operated a Metro III, a reminder that maritime patrol in Trinidad and Tobago has not always sat with the air arm alone.

The AW139 problem

The modern fleet centres on four AgustaWestland AW139 helicopters. Their story is the one the press has followed most closely. According to Wikipedia, citing the Trinidad Express, all four were grounded from 2017 because there was no money for maintenance, and one returned to operational status in December 2020; the press report Wikipedia cites was headlined ‘Grounded copter getting wings again to battle crime’, and the Minister of National Security, Stuart Young, commented publicly at the time. How many of the four are flying in 2026 is not published. For a service whose search and rescue and patrol work depends almost entirely on helicopters, that gap is the most important fact about it, and it is one the government has not answered in public.

Today: two Metros, four helicopters and three airfields

Today Wikipedia, citing FlightGlobal’s World Air Forces, lists two C-26B Metro maritime patrol aircraft and four AW139s. The Air Guard flies from Piarco International Airport, which began as a civil airfield in 1931 and was a Royal Navy and US air station in the Second World War; it also uses Crown Point International Airport in Tobago and a heliport at Chaguaramas. Group Captain Kemba Hannays took command on 10 July 2023. The Air Guard has no combat aircraft and no record of combat flying; the sources consulted do not mention it in the 1990 Jamaat al Muslimeen coup attempt, in which the Coast Guard supported the Regiment. It is a coastguard air service in all but name, and should be judged as one.

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