Busy weekend for Portuguese rescue aircraft
The combined missions saw Portuguese Air Force crews clock up over 24 hours of flight.
The Portuguese Air Force has reported that over the weekend of 4 to 6 August, several of its air rescue units were activated for multiple missions, including an international medical flight, a human organ transport, inter-island medical transports in the Madeira and Azores archipelagos, a ship rescue and the airlift of a walker from a remote location.
The first of these missions took place late on Friday afternoon. A C-295M plane operated by 502 ‘Elephant’ Squadron carried out the urgent medical transport of three patients from Flores Island to Faial. While this mission was taking place in the Azores archipelago, a Falcon 50 plane crew from 504 ‘Lynx’ Squadron and an Air Force medical team were activated to undertake the medical transport of a patient from São Tomé and Príncipe off the coast of Gabon to Lisbon, Portugal. The Falcon 50 aircraft took off for São Tomé Island following a request made by the island nation’s embassy to the Portuguese authorities; the crew landed at dawn on 5 August. The medical team stabilised the patient and took off for Lisbon in under 24 hours. After reaching Lisbon at dawn on 6 August, the patient was transferred to Santa Maria Hospital.
On Saturday 5 August, an EH-101 Merlin helicopter from 751 ‘Puma’ Squadron carried out the medical transport of a patient between the islands of Porto Santo and Madeira. On the same day, an 502 Squadron C-295M was activated in Montijo to carry out a human organ transport mission.
At dawn on Sunday 6 August, duty crews from the 751 and 502 Squadrons on Porto Santo were called on to perform the medevac a crew member from the merchant ship Bulk Indonesia, which was about 335 km northwest of the island. The 37-year-old man, a Filipino national, was successfully rescued and later taken to the Nélio Mendonça Hospital in Funchal. The same morning, a 552 ‘Bee’ Squadron crew at Ovar was tasked with airlifting an individual who had suffered a fall at a waterfall near Paiva. An Alouette III helicopter took off from Maceda Base at 13:10 hrs and arrived at the scene 10 minutes later to take the victim to a nearby soccer field for onward transport by ground ambulance.
The combined missions saw Portuguese Air Force crews clock up over 24 hours of flight.