U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Air and Marine Operations division, or AMO, operates one the largest air arms of any U.S. federal government agency outside of the U.S. military, often going back and forth with State Department's sprawling Air Wing for the top spot on that list. AMO has a diverse array of fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters, as well as Reaper drones, none of which are particularly difficult to find information about, with the curious exception of a small and mysterious fleet of three Sikorsky S-76B helicopters.
AMO, and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) as a whole, is extremely tight-lipped about the trio of S-76Bs. The Department of Homeland Security, of which CBP is a part, registered all three helicopters, which carry the U.S. civil registration codes N159CM, N269FL, and N844LC, in 2012, according to Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) records. They all wear a non-descript black-and-gray paint scheme that is distinct from other AMO aircraft and have no markings beyond their registrations.
Sikorsky first introduced the twin-engine S-76 line in the late 1970s and began producing the B variant in the late 1980s. The S-76B evolved from what the company had originally marketed as the S-76 Mk II, which featured more powerful engines along with improved avionics and other upgrades that gave it a true all-weather capability. All of AMO's S-76Bs were made in 1987, the first year that variant came onto the market.
