T
he Guardia di Finanza, translated to English as “Guard of Finance,” is a law enforcement agency under the authority of the Italian Minister of Economy and Finance. The agency is a militarized police force and is essentially responsible for dealing with financial crime and smuggling; it has also evolved into Italy’s primary agency for suppressing the illegal drug trade. The Guardia di Finanza maintains over 600 boats and ships and more than 100 aircraft to serve in its mission of patrolling Italy’s territorial waters. The agency also has the role of border police and customs duties at Italian airports.
The Air Section of the Guardia di Finanza of Venice was founded at the Padova airport in 1956, two years after the birth of the Guardia di Finanza air service in Italy. Over the course of its history, the section has had various locations including Rimini, the Island of Sant’Andrea and currently the Venice Tessera Airport, thus becoming an autonomous department of a territorial nature, dependent on the 7th Legion of Venice.
The department’s barracks is named after the specialist Major Marshal Ferdinando Zorzutti, who died in service on July 12, 1991. At 5:40 a.m. on that tragic morning, Marshal Zorzutti took off aboard the NH- 500 M.M. helicopter for a reconnaissance mission aimed at intercepting motorboats suspected of perpetrating international smuggling of weapons and drugs, which had escaped a naval enforcement unit the previous night. Flying over the area east
of Caorle, the poor visibility forced the crew to reverse course and at around 6:25 a.m. the helicopter crashed into the waters near Brussa Beach in the municipality of Caorle.
For the Venice Air Section, as well as for many other Italian military units, the first helicopter used was the AB-47G, an iconic helicopter with its characteristic front plexiglass bubble and a lattice fuselage built with metal tubes. Powered by an air-cooled Lycoming 6-cylinder opposed engine, the performance was not even comparable with modern vehicles. However, what made this machine special (let’s remember that the Bell 47 was the first certified helicopter for civilian use in 1946) was the versatility and possibilities of use for the armed forces and police.
After the AB-47 in the G and J versions, the Venice Air Section used the NH-500 M, NH-500 MC, NH-500 MD, A109 AII and the MCH-109 “Nexus” aircraft. In 2023, the section reached an important technological breakthrough with the in- service of the MH-169A helicopter.
Today the Venice Air Section is located under the Venice Air-Naval Operations Department that constitutes the coastal air- naval component available to the Veneto Regional Command, cooperating with the naval component of the Friuli Venezia Giulia Regional Command. The agency answered our following questions...
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