SAN DIEGO — Just as the city of San Diego closed the books on a difficult budget year, emergency response officials sent one of their helicopters to Orange County to join the hunt for the son of a retired Fire-Rescue Department leader.

The deployment — which cost almost $30,000 — came at a time when at least three positions were being eliminated from the department’s budget, and it rankled rank-and-file workers being asked to do more with less.

Late on the afternoon of June 29, the Sikorsky S-70i Firehawk took off from Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport and headed north to Newport Beach to aid the U.S. Coast Guard and other first responders in a missing-persons search.

The crew and its support team spent more than two hours in the air before returning to the McClelland-Palomar Airport in Carlsbad about 7:40 p.m., flight records show.

The missing man was identified as Wesley Alan MacFarland, the 47-year-old son of longtime San Diego Fire-Rescue chief of air operations Charles MacFarland. The search was called off after Wesley MacFarland was found safe, “chilling at his apartment.”

San Diego officials initially framed the deployment as a routine mutual-aid response to a neighboring jurisdiction — even though the search for MacFarland had been under way for 10 hours by the time the helicopter was sent north.

“Shortly after 5:33 p.m., SDFD’s Copter 3 flew up to support the U.S. Coast Guard, Newport Beach Fire and other partner agencies in the search for a missing swimmer in the Newport Harbor area,” spokesperson Candace Hadley said by email.

“The missing individual was reported to be found alive later that evening,” she added.

Los Angeles area news reports identified the missing swimmer as Wesley MacFarland, who was seen diving into a turbulent surfing spot known as The Wedge around 7:45 a.m.

After The San Diego Union-Tribune pressed the city about the relationship between the missing man and the retired Fire-Rescue official, Deputy Fire Chief Dan Eddy said the deployment was managed while maintaining appropriate emergency coverage in San Diego.

“As public-safety professionals, our mission is to help when lives are at risk,” Eddy said in a statement.

“Our decision to provide mutual aid was guided by the same commitment we bring to every emergency: To provide care, urgency and support to help anyone whose life is in danger, whether that be here in our city or at the request of a neighboring jurisdiction when resources allow,” Eddy said.

San Diego Diego Fire-Rescue has three helicopters, but the city has sharply curtailed their use in recent weeks and months due to cost.

Flight records show the Firehawk sent to Orange County is the most active, with 20 or so deployments in the past two weeks. Another craft has been sent out six times, and the third has not been dispatched in the past 14 days.

Under mutual-aid guidelines and agreements, participating agencies choose to provide assistance to outside agencies when they are able to supply personnel and equipment without diminishing the safety of their own constituents.

San Diego Fire-Rescue declined to provide any records related to its mutual-aid response, or explain why the department waited 10 hours to join the Newport Harbor search.

Hadley did say the S-70i Firehawk generally costs more than $11,000 an hour to operate. She estimated the cost of the Orange County deployment at $28,800 based on a flight of nearly two and a half hours. She also said the flight costs are not likely to be recovered.

“This mission ultimately did not meet criteria for reimbursement,” Hadley said.

The expense comes at a challenging time for the city budget — and San Diego Fire-Rescue, which is now negotiating a new firefighters contract.

Under the budget adopted by the City Council and signed by Mayor Todd Gloria last month, the department eliminated one fire academy instructor position, a recruitment and retention officer position and a fire information officer position.

The department also eliminated dedicated staffing for the bomb squad, adopting a “cross-staffing” model that has firefighters responding to routine calls while being on-call for bomb threats.

Neither Gloria nor Council President Joe LaCava responded to requests for comment on the use of city resources to join the hunt for the missing son of a former fire department official. Councilmember Marni von Wilpert, who chairs the council’s public safety committee, also did not respond to a request for comment on the deployment.

George Duardo, president of the San Diego City Firefighters Local 145, said every spending decision a department chief makes affects the city’s ability to maintain a stable workforce and deliver services to residents and visitors.

“Due to ‘budgetary constraints,’ San Diego Fire-Rescue has already eliminated staffing for several key positions and sharply reduced air operations,” he said. “As a result, our members are being asked to take on more and more load.”

Duardo declined to comment specifically on the decision to join the Newport Harbor search but said San Diego needs to be careful about deploying its people and equipment.

“Every resource must be directed to the most efficient public-safety use possible,” he said.

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