The navy came back to helicopters in 1975, when four Aérospatiale Alouette IIIs formed the Navy Helicopter Squadron at Elliniko, Athens’s old airport, according to the navy’s own history. Between 1979 and 1982 Agusta delivered 11 AB 212ASW and two AB 212EW helicopters, the first that could hunt submarines from Greek warships, and in 1980 a Navy Helicopter Command was set up at Amfiali naval base at Skaramanga.

In 1986 the command moved to the Naval Fort of Kotroni, north-west of Marathon, and the Hellenic Navy Helicopter Base was established to run the field. The base’s own duties, as the navy lists them, are air traffic control, security and defence, maintenance of the infrastructure, fire safety, military police and logistics; the flying belongs to the squadrons. Amfiali survives as a navy heliport on the Aviation Command’s list of subordinate sites.

In 1997 the navy formed two helicopter squadrons. Squadron 1 took the AB 212s, the EW version until 2004 and the Alouette III until 2013; its seahorse-and-submarine emblem sums up its anti-submarine job, and the navy says its types have flown more than 70,000 hours. Squadron 2, formed on 17 November 1997, took the S-70B-6 Aegean Hawk, a version of the Seahawk ordered from Sikorsky on 20 December 1991. The first, HN 51, flew on 22 March 1994 and was delivered on 18 March 1995; eleven aircraft were in service by 2005.

The third generation is the MH-60R. Greece ordered four in July 2020 and three in April 2021, and the first three entered service on 20 March 2024, based at Kotroni according to Greek City Times. The navy lists their weapons as Hellfire missiles, APKWS rockets, Mk 46 torpedoes and a 7.62 mm machine gun, with dipping sonar and sonobuoys for submarine hunting. Four more were expected by 2026; their arrival was not confirmed for this page. English Wikipedia places both helicopter squadrons at Elefsis, but the navy’s pages and the press place the helicopters and their command at Kotroni.

The navy’s helicopters fly from frigates, and their most famous mission ended in loss. During the Imia crisis, early on 31 January 1996, an AB 212 from the frigate Navarino flew a night reconnaissance over the islets, which Greece regards as Greek and Turkey, which calls them Kardak, disputed. It crashed, and Lieutenant Commander Christodoulos Karathanasis, Lieutenant Panagiotis Vlachakos and Petty Officer Hector Gialopsos were killed. Wikipedia notes speculation that Turkish fire was responsible; no official confirmation by either government was found.

Twenty years later the navy lost another helicopter: Militaire.gr records the loss of PN-28 on 11 February 2016 with three dead, though the circumstances were not confirmed from an official source. On the 30th anniversary of Imia, in January 2026, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis paid tribute to the three aviators of 1996.

Search and rescue is a large part of what flies out of Kotroni. Helicopter Squadron 2 lists anti-surface and anti-submarine warfare first, but also search and rescue, medical evacuation, vertical replenishment and special operations, and it counts more than 3,000 flight hours and more than 450 people rescued since 2014. Its own record singles out the rescue from the burning ferry Norman Atlantic and the flood relief in Thessaly after Storm Daniel in September 2023.

The MH-60R changes what the base can do at sea. The navy gives it a crew of two pilots and a systems operator, two T700-GE-401C engines and a maximum take-off weight of 10,700 kg, and equips it with radar, dipping sonar, a sonobuoy launcher, an electro-optical turret, data links and a self-protection system. Its weapons are Hellfire missiles, APKWS laser-guided rockets, Mk 46 torpedoes and a 7.62 mm machine gun. The S-70B Aegean Hawks it joins carry the Penguin anti-ship missile, and the navy’s emblem for their squadron includes the missile’s silhouette.