Devon Air Ambulance establishes new night landing site

The UK’s Devon Air Ambulance Trust (DAAT) has established new community night landing site at Tavistock Football Club’s Langsford Park playing fields, in partnership with the club and Tavistock Town Council.

The establishment of the site included the installation of a remote switching unit capable of operating the club’s floodlighting to offer easy landing to DAAT helicopters. The installation of the remote switching unit was supported through funding from Tavistock Town Council.

DAAT says that the ‘surveyed, floodlit site’ offers a cost-effective solution to establishing a night landing site in Tavistock and will enable DAAT to land its aircraft more quickly and efficiently during night-time hours.

“This will help our crews by illuminating the area during landing and take-off as well as helping medical teams when moving around on the ground and preparing for the safe loading of a patient into the helicopter,” said Toby Russell, Community Landing Sites Development Officer at Devon Air Ambulance.

DAAT plans to establish a second night landing site in Tavistock in the near future

Russell added that ‘in time, we hope a second night landing site [in Tavistock] will be established on the other side of the town at Mount Kelly which, when combined with this site, will give our medical teams even better access to the town’s residents’.

“Devon Air Ambulance is close to the hearts of several volunteers at the football club and when the charity approached us with regards to becoming a community landing site, we were more than happy to offer our pitch and support the outstanding work that they do for the people of Devon,” said Stuart James, Tavistock FC’s Head of Communications.

DAAT currently operates 19 hours per day between 07:00 hrs and 02:00 hrs, although the charity plans to extend its operations to eventually become a 24/7 service. There are currently 187 operational night landing sites available for the service across Devon.

DAAT operates a fleet of two helicopters, an Airbus H135 and an H145 helicopter, as well as two Critical Care Cars. In 2021, 1418 missions were undertaken by helicopter and 476 by car. Of these, 294 missions were responded to by aircraft during the hours of darkness.