Nine helicopters lift off from Mayfair as Gauteng police watch election hotspots from the sky

Nine helicopters, two of them South African Police Service aircraft, took off from Arthur Block grounds in Mayfair to give aerial monitoring support to law enforcement deployments across Gauteng for the 2026 local government elections.

The provincial commissioner led the joint air support deployment, according to the SAPS post announcing the operation. The flyovers are giving executive leadership a real-time view of deployments and of the situation in identified hotspot areas.

Seven of the nine aircraft belong to other law enforcement agencies taking part in the joint operation. SAPS did not name them in the post.

The service did not say which areas are on its hotspot list, how long the aircraft will stay up, or what the crews are watching for. Nor did it give the number of officers deployed on the ground.

SAPS framed the flights as a visibility measure, with the hashtag #EyeInTheSky and #PoliceVisibility attached to the announcement. The photographs released with the post show the aircraft on the ground at Mayfair before departure.

Local government elections are run by the Electoral Commission, which has its own responsibility for the security of the vote and the count. SAPS has not set out how the aerial picture it is gathering will be shared with the commission or with other agencies on the ground.