UW Health Med Flight is an air ambulance service based at University of Wisconsin Hospital in Madison, Wisconsin. Med Flight was established in 1985, and now operate 3 bases in Madison, Mineral Point and Portage. [1]
UW Health Med Flight is an air ambulance service based at University of Wisconsin Hospital in Madison, Wisconsin. Med Flight was established in 1985, and now operate 3 bases in Madison, Mineral Point and Portage. [1]
The first operational flight was in April 1985 and carried a heart attack patient from Coloma, Wisconsin who survived. The initial staff was three doctors, six nurses, three pilots and one mechanic. There was no aircraft hangar and maintenance on the aircraft was performed outside with a helipad in the parking lot. There was also some controversy in nearby Shorewood Hills, Wisconsin over noise from the helicopter. 20 years later, it was staffed by a rotating crew of 23 doctors, 12 nurses, eight communications specialists and six pilots and had three helicopters and a ground ambulance. [2] In 2005, an $8 million project created a heliport on the 8th floor rooftop of the hospital replacing the parking lot landing pad and created larger hangars to support three aircraft. [3] The ambulance was added in 2004 for inter-hospital transports to reduce costs and free a helicopter for emergency transports. [4]
Since 2020, the Med Flight fleet consists of two Airbus EC 145 helicopters and one EC 135 helicopters operated by Metro Aviation. [5] In 2014, the Med Flight fleet included two Eurocopter EC 135 helicopters, N911UW [6] and N435UW. [7] N435UW [8] replaced N135UW, [9] which was destroyed in a fatal crash on May 10, 2008. N911UW [10] replaced N235UW [11] in October 2014 as a part of an upgrade to standardize the interior layout of the two helicopters. In July 2007 the EC 135 helicopters, costing $4 million each and currently operated and maintained by Air Methods, replaced two Agusta A109E 'Power' helicopters, two of which were N1UW [12] and N12UW, [13] [14] operated and maintained by CJ Systems Aviation Group. [15] [16]
One of the Agusta aircraft was forced to make a precautionary landing in a field in the town of Rutland, Wisconsin on Friday July 28, 2006, after an equipment warning light activated. [17]
On May 10, 2008, helicopter N135UW, [18] known as Med Flight 1, crashed near La Crosse, Wisconsin, fatally injuring all three crew members. Initial reports indicated that the helicopter "may have flown into a hill and or struck some trees." [19] Impact debris and rotor blade fragments were found near the top of the 1,160 feet elevation ridgeline about 4.5 miles south of La Crosse Airport. Main debris was located 600 feet below that point around 930 feet elevation. La Crosse Municipal Airport field elevation is 654 feet. [20] On September 3, 2010, the NTSB released its report, finding that the probable cause of the accident was, "The pilot’s failure to maintain clearance from trees along the top of a ridgeline due to inadequate preflight planning, insufficient altitude, and the lack of a helicopter terrain awareness and warning system." [21]
A heliport, sometimes termed a vertiport, is a small airport suitable for use by helicopters and various types of vertical lift aircraft. Designated heliports typically contain one or more touchdown and liftoff areas and may also have limited facilities such as fuel or hangars. In some larger towns and cities, customs facilities may also be available.
Teterboro Airport is a general aviation relief airport situated in the boroughs of Teterboro, Moonachie, and Hasbrouck Heights in Bergen County, New Jersey. It is owned and managed by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and operated by AFCO AvPORTS Management. The airport is in the New Jersey Meadowlands, 12 miles (19 km) north-northwest of Midtown Manhattan, making it popular for private and corporate aircraft. The airport has a weight limit of 100,000 pounds (45,000 kg) on aircraft, making it nonviable for any commercial service.
The AgustaWestland AW109, originally the Agusta A109, is a lightweight, twin-engine, eight-seat multi-purpose helicopter designed and initially produced by the Italian rotorcraft manufacturer Agusta. It was the first all-Italian helicopter to be mass-produced. Its production has been continued by Agusta's successor companies, presently Leonardo.
Dane County Regional Airport (DCRA), also known as Truax Field, is a civil-military airport located 6 nautical miles northeast of downtown Madison, Wisconsin. In the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2023–2027, it is one of two airports in Wisconsin that is categorized as a small-hub primary commercial service facility; the other is Appleton International Airport. It is the second busiest of eight commercial airports in Wisconsin in terms of passengers served, after Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport.
The Bell 47 is a single-rotor single-engine light helicopter manufactured by Bell Helicopter. It was based on the third Bell 30 prototype, which was the company's first helicopter designed by Arthur M. Young. The 47 became the first helicopter certified for civilian use on 8 March 1946. The first civilian delivery was made on 31 December 1946 to Helicopter Air Transport. More than 5,600 Bell 47s were produced, including those under license by Agusta in Italy, Kawasaki Heavy Industries in Japan, and Westland Aircraft in the United Kingdom. The Bell 47J Ranger is a modified version with a fully enclosed cabin and tail boom.
Green Bay–Austin Straubel International Airport is a county-owned public-use airport in Brown County, Wisconsin, United States, which serves Northeastern Wisconsin. It is the fourth busiest of eight commercial service airports in Wisconsin in terms of passengers served. The airport is located 7 nautical miles southwest of downtown Green Bay, in the village of Ashwaubenon.
Williamsport Regional Airport serves Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and the surrounding area with a population of roughly 200,000. The airport processes approximately 40,000 passengers annually and has served north central Pennsylvania since 1929.
La Crosse Regional Airport is a public airport located 5 nautical miles northwest of La Crosse, a city in La Crosse County, Wisconsin, United States. Until August 2013 the airport was called La Crosse Municipal Airport.
Sheboygan County Memorial International Airport is a county-owned public-use non-towered airport located in the Town of Sheboygan Falls, three nautical miles (6 km) northwest of the City of Sheboygan, in Sheboygan County, Wisconsin, United States. It is included in the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2021–2025, in which it is categorized as a regional general aviation facility. Sheboygan's National Weather Service observation station is based at the airport.
Scholes International Airport at Galveston is three miles southwest of Galveston, in Galveston County, Texas, United States. The National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2011–2015 categorized it as a reliever airport.
New England Life Flight, d/b/a Boston MedFlight, is a non-profit organization that provides emergency scene response and emergency interfacility transfer in Eastern Massachusetts at the Critical Care level using helicopters, fixed-wing aircraft, and ground ambulances.
Air Methods Corporation is an American privately owned helicopter operator. The air medical division provides emergency medical services to over 100,000 patients every year. It operates in 48 states with air medical as its primary business focus. Its corporate headquarters are located in the Denver Technological Center, Greenwood Village, Colorado, in the Denver metropolitan area.
The safety of emergency medical services flights has become a topic of public interest in the United States, with the expansion of emergency medical services aviation operations, such as air ambulance and MEDEVAC, and the increasing frequency of related accidents.
Huntsville Executive Airport, also known as Tom Sharp Jr. Field and formerly Madison County Executive Airport, is a public-use airport in Madison County, Alabama, United States. It is owned by the Executive Flight Center and located eight nautical miles (14.80 km) northeast of the central business district of Huntsville. According to the FAA's National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2009–2013, it is categorized as a general aviation facility.
Los Angeles Airways Flight 841 was a Sikorsky S-61 helicopter that crashed at 5:50 p.m. on Wednesday, May 22, 1968, in the city of Paramount, California. All twenty passengers and three crew members were killed. The aircraft was destroyed by impact and fire. The probable cause of the accident was a mechanical failure in the blade rotor system, which then allowed one blade to strike the side of the fuselage. As a result, the other four blades were thrown out of balance. All five rotor blades then broke and the rear fuselage and tail separated from the rest of the airframe. The cause of the mechanical failure is undetermined. At the time, it was the worst helicopter-related accident in U.S. aviation history, not to be surpassed until the 1986 Grand Canyon mid-air collision which killed 25.
Air ambulances in the United States are operated by a variety of hospitals, local government agencies, and for-profit companies. Medical evacuations by air are also performed by the United States Armed Forces and United States National Guard.
On April 9, 1990, Atlantic Southeast Airlines Flight 2254, a scheduled passenger flight from Muscle Shoals, Alabama, to Gadsden, Alabama, to Atlanta, Georgia, was involved in a mid-air collision with a Cessna 172 over Gadsden. The collision resulted in the death of the pilot and passenger of the Cessna 172.
Air medical services are the use of aircraft, including both fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters to provide various kinds of urgent medical care, especially prehospital, emergency and critical care to patients during aeromedical evacuation and rescue operations.
Eastern Air Lines Flight 935 was a scheduled commercial passenger flight operated by Eastern Air Lines. On September 22, 1981, the Lockheed L-1011 TriStar jet operating the flight suffered an uncontained engine failure which led to a loss of 3 out of the 4 hydraulic systems aboard the aircraft at an altitude of 10,000 feet (3,000 m) MSL. The crew were able to land the aircraft safely to an emergency landing at John F. Kennedy International Airport with some limited use of the outboard spoilers, the inboard ailerons and the horizontal stabilizer, plus differential engine power of the remaining two engines. There were no injuries.
Transair Flight 810 was a Boeing 737-200 converted freighter aircraft, owned and operated by Rhoades Aviation under the Transair trade name, on a short cargo flight en route from Honolulu International Airport to Kahului Airport on the neighboring Hawaiian island of Maui. Immediately after an early morning takeoff on July 2, 2021, one of its two Pratt & Whitney JT8D turbofan engines faltered, and the first officer, who was flying the aircraft, reduced power to both engines. The two pilots—the only occupants of the aircraft—began executing the Engine Failure or Shutdown checklist, but became preoccupied with talking to air traffic control (ATC) and performing other flying tasks, never reaching the section of the checklist where the failing engine was to be positively identified and shut down. The captain assumed control but misidentified the failing engine, increased power to that engine, and did not increase power to the other, properly functioning engine. Convinced that neither engine was working properly and unable to maintain altitude with one engine faltering and the other idling, the pilots ditched off the coast of Oahu about 11 minutes into the flight.