AgustaWestland, a Finmeccanica company , announces that the first production AW189 has performed its first flight yesterday at the plant in Vergiate, Italy. The helicopter will be delivered to Bristow Helicopters Ltd by the end of the year to carry out transport operations to and from oil platforms in the North Sea and will enter service in early 2014. Two other AW189 are currently in assembly at the line of Vergiate.

The completion of the first AW189 represents an exceptional program accomplishment for AgustaWestland. A second final assembly line is being completed at the AgustaWestland facility of Yeovil, in the UK, where the AW189 will be produced for search and rescue services.

During the last week of September, it was successfully held in Cologne the Type Board Meeting for the AW189, the most important meeting of the certification phase. Presented at the Paris Air Show in June 2011, the AW189 is part of the family of next-generation AgustaWestland helicopters that includes the AW169 and AW139 models .