The Mosquito Research and Control Unit’s two aircraft cost CI$2,200,578.35 to operate and crew between 2023 and 2025, during which they flew a combined 677.4 hours, according to figures released to The Caymanian Journal (TCJ) under the Freedom of Information Act, as Government moves to replace both planes within months of each other.

The figures arrive at a moment when the unit’s aerial capability is at its thinnest. One aircraft is grounded with a mechanical fault, the other is within hours of a compulsory inspection, and the unit has told residents across all three islands to expect a surge in mosquito numbers after high tides and heavy rain flooded wetland breeding grounds.

A second aircraft, and a second CI$1.8 million

The Minister for Health, Environment and Sustainability, Katherine Ebanks-Wilks MP, told Parliament on 1 October that Cabinet had approved a further CI$1,800,000 for the ministry’s capital appropriation to “procure an additional replacement aircraft concurrently with the one replacement aircraft already approved in the 2026-2027 budget”, met “by reducing the Infrastructure Development Fund by the same amount”. The approval was made under section 115 of the Public Management and Finance Act as an exceptional circumstance transaction and reported to the House under section 116, which requires such transactions to be laid before members.

The unit’s two aircraft were “experiencing increasing periods of downtime due to ongoing maintenance and repair requirements”, she said, and although both remained airworthy, sourcing parts for the ageing fleet was proving difficult. Maintenance records showed “a clear inverse relationship between maintenance downtime and operational availability”, with the number of days out of service continuing to increase and the days available for spraying falling as a result.

Replacing both at once would give the unit “a modern standardised fleet with common technical configurations and maintenance requirements”, she said, improving redundancy and reducing what she called life-cycle management complexity. She described the decision as “both prudent and necessary” and said buying the two aircraft together offered “measurable financial benefits through procurement efficiencies, fleet standardisation, and streamlined maintenance”.

The Minister told the House that the Infrastructure Development Fund was established to fund roads, affordable housing and other infrastructure, and that under regulation 37A of the Development and Planning Regulations infrastructure is defined as public services and utilities used in common by residents. The aerial fleet, she said, met the statutory definition of essential public infrastructure, since it delivers “large-scale vector control and suppression operations across thousands of acres of terrain that are inaccessible to ground-based crews”. The fleet’s ability to treat expansive areas rapidly made it, she said, “a key contributor to safeguarding public health, supporting tourism, and enhancing overall quality of life”.

Asked by Roy McTaggart MP, the Opposition member for George Town East, whether the ministry had considered leasing an aircraft in the interim to restore regular flying, Ms Ebanks-Wilks said leasing had initially been looked into but a leased aircraft would not be ready until December 2026, while the new aircraft “is hoped to be ready somewhere in the early part of the new year, 2027”. Mr McTaggart said he was “absolutely overjoyed we’re going for two” and had argued for it during last year’s budget.

The 1 October statement is the first time the ministry has put a figure on a second aircraft. The first replacement was announced in November 2025. Presenting her ministry’s budget to Finance Committee on 19 November 2025, Ms Ebanks-Wilks said the control programme “relies on a fleet of two aircraft, that have exceeded their optimal service life and the required maintenance is costly”, and that Government was “planning to invest $1,800,000 (one million, eight hundred thousand Cayman Dollars) in the procurement of replacement aircrafts”. The 2026 and 2027 Plan and Estimates puts the cost of the Mosquito Control Services output, which covers aerial and ground operations, larviciding, surveillance and public education across the three islands, at CI$10,155,000 for 2026.

What the aircraft cost and how much they flew

TCJ asked the unit by email on 7 September for the age and registration of each aircraft, the annual cost of operating them in each of the last three financial years, including fuel, maintenance, insurance and crew where available, and the flight hours flown in each of those years. The unit’s information manager acknowledged the request the same day and the unit responded on 29 September.

The unit operates two S2RHG-T65 Turbo Thrush aircraft, a single-seat agricultural type built for low-level spraying. VP-CKE was manufactured on 1 April 2006 and VP-CKF on 1 November 2005.

Aircraft-related expenditure was CI$401,287.48 in 2023, CI$408,403.06 in 2024 and CI$337,770.81 in 2025. Aviation crew payroll was CI$313,821.00, CI$347,000.00 and CI$392,296.00 for the same years. The combined totals were CI$715,108.48, CI$755,403.06 and CI$730,066.81, giving the three-year figure of CI$2,200,578.35. Aircraft-related spending fell by about CI$70,000 between 2024 and 2025 while crew payroll rose by about CI$45,000, leaving the combined annual total within a CI$40,000 band across the three years. The unit said the aircraft-related figures cover aviation fuel, maintenance and parts, contracted agricultural pilot services, freight and shipping, airworthiness and regulatory fees, parking and other aircraft and hangar-related expenses. TCJ had asked for insurance to be included where available; it is not listed among the categories identified in the response.

The unit said it could not provide flight hours year by year and instead gave a cumulative figure for 1 September 2023 to 1 September 2026. Over that period VP-CKE recorded 165.2 Hobbs hours across 244 flights and VP-CKF recorded 512.2 Hobbs hours across 660 flights, a combined 677.4 hours and 904 flights. The older of the two aircraft, VP-CKF, flew roughly three times as many hours as its stablemate over the period.

On the unit’s own calculation, the identified expenditure “equates to an average of approximately CI$3,248.57 per recorded Hobbs hour, or CI$2,434.27 per flight”.

The unit cautioned that Hobbs time, which on its aircraft begins accumulating at a forward speed of about 30 knots, “does not represent the full period during which the aircraft is operating”, and that engine-on time before that point, including preparation and loading, “is not fully reflected in the recorded Hobbs hours”. Spraying flights are short by design: at 904 flights for 677.4 hours, the average sortie recorded under 45 minutes of Hobbs time, and across the two aircraft the fleet averaged roughly 226 recorded hours a year, or about 113 hours per aircraft.

For comparison, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration’s current economic values guidance puts the total cost of operating a single-engine turboprop aircraft at US$971 (about CI$809) an hour, including depreciation and a notional crew cost, on an assumed 333 flying hours a year. That is a general aviation average across all single-engine turboprops rather than a figure for agricultural aircraft, and it is not directly comparable with the unit’s calculation, which includes full crew payroll and the costs of maintaining 20-year-old aircraft, and spreads them across a fleet flying far fewer hours a year, so that each recorded hour carries a larger share of the fixed cost.

A further CI$1.89 million for larvicide

The aircraft purchase was the second of two exceptional transactions for the unit reported to Parliament on consecutive days. On 2 October Ms Ebanks-Wilks told the House, in a further statement under section 116, that Cabinet had approved an increase of CI$1,891,000 in the Mosquito Control Services appropriation during the 2026 financial year, under section 115 of the Act. The money was “necessary supplementary funding for the Mosquito Research and Control Unit to purchase additional larvicide to treat some 15,000 acres across Grand Cayman and ensure that aerial mosquito control operations remain uninterrupted in 2026”, she said.

Environmental conditions across Grand Cayman in 2026 had “proven to be favourable for mosquito breeding, resulting in elevated numbers being recorded”, the Minister said, and the unit’s larvicide stockpile had “depleted much faster than usual”. Each acre required about eight pounds of larvicide, which continues to prevent larvae from reaching adulthood for up to 30 days after application. The product, she said, targets mosquito larvae specifically and does not harm other wildlife. The application is by pellet rather than spray, she told parliament.

Asked by Pearlina McGaw-Lumsden MP, the Opposition member for George Town West, whether the aircraft also serve Cayman Brac and Little Cayman and how often, the Minister said two residual larvicide treatments are done each year for Cayman Brac, of which one had been completed in 2026, and that other aerial treatments there are “done as and when needed” without a specific schedule. The ministry was also looking at increasing the use of drones in Cayman Brac.

The Minister closed by thanking the unit’s field staff, saying she had joined a crew early one morning and that it was “not an easy job”, with teams “operating in some rough terrains and being abused by mosquitoes” so that residents are spared the nuisance.

One plane grounded, the other near inspection

In a public statement on 29 September the unit said higher than normal tides in wetland areas, combined with increased rainfall, had created extensive breeding habitat. The quickest way to reduce an adult population across a wide area is aerial adulticiding, the unit said, which is where the condition of the fleet bites. The unit had one aircraft available for operations, and that aircraft had reached its 100-hour inspection but had been granted a further 10 flight hours before it must be withdrawn for the inspection, which “typically takes approximately two weeks to complete”. The unit intended to use those hours “where conditions allow and where surveillance indicates treatment is most needed”, with surveillance continuing across all three islands to identify the areas of highest activity and direct both aerial and ground crews.

The second aircraft “is currently grounded following a mechanical issue” and the duration of the grounding was unknown. Once the additional hours were used, the unit said, it would be unable to conduct aerial operations until one of the two aircraft returned to service. In the meantime it would rely on truck fogging and other ground-based measures in affected communities, directed by surveillance data, while acknowledging that fogging’s reach “is more limited than aerial treatment” and that trucks “cannot cover the same large geographical areas as quickly as aircraft”.

The statement said Government had approved the aircraft’s replacement and that “the procurement process for new aircraft is currently underway”. Restoring full aerial adulticiding capability, the unit said, “will significantly improve the Unit’s ability to respond quickly and across wider areas”.

Residents were asked to help by checking their properties once or twice a week and emptying anything holding standing water, including buckets, plant saucers, tyres, toys and containers. While the current emergence is driven by wetland breeders, the unit said, removing water around homes helps prevent Aedes aegypti, the container-breeding species associated with dengue and other diseases, from becoming a parallel problem.