The Victorian police commissioner who used one of the force’s helicopters to fly nearly 600km from Melbourne to Tasmania to attend a conference has apologised for his “mistake”.

The chief commissioner, Mike Bush, used Victoria police’s “secondary” helicopter to cross the Bass Strait and attend a meeting with his counterparts in Hobart – where a mechanical issue caused it to be grounded on Monday night.

It returned to Melbourne at about 4.30pm on Tuesday, and police say its absence from Victoria had no impact on community safety.

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In a statement acknowledging his first mistake since becoming commissioner in June, Bush said more effort should have been made to find a commercial flight – which usually takes an hour. He said the use of the helicopter didn’t cost taxpayers extra.

“I’m sorry that I made a bad decision,” Bush told ABC radio on Wednesday.

“If we’d been patient, more diligent, we would have booked a commercial flight and [that] … would have been the most appropriate course of action.”

While there was one fewer police helicopter in Melbourne that night it didn’t impact operational matters, he said.

“It was the wrong call … perceptions are critically important to the public,” he said.

“I will not be making the same mistake again.”

Victoria police also has a fixed-wing aircraft, but a spokesperson said that plane was “deemed unviable due to strong winds in Tasmania” on Monday.

Bush, a former New Zealand police commissioner, instead used a police aircraft that’s mostly used for training and as a backup to the force’s main helicopter.

He had travelled to Hobart for the Australian and New Zealand Police Commissioners Forum, where cross-border police operations, national security decisions and police deployments were discussed.

The New Zealand police commissioner, Richard Chambers, joined him on the helicopter flight, as they had attended the same counter-terrorism conference in Melbourne.

Bush will return to Melbourne on a commercial flight.

The commissioner has been widely praised by the government and the police union since taking on the job, after a tumultuous time for the force.

His predecessor, Shane Patton, resigned after an overwhelming no-confidence vote in his leadership from officers in the police union, linked to an 18-month pay dispute.

A police spokesperson said the only other time Bush had used one of the force’s aircraft was when he flew to Porepunkah, in northern Victoria, to the scene of a deadly police shooting in August.