What is a Medevac Flight & When Is One Needed? (2024)

FAQs

What is a Medevac Flight & When Is One Needed? ›

A medical flight is a flight that a sick or injured person takes when they require medical care during transportation to or from a medical facility.

Medevac flights usually occur in helicopters or air ambulances. These vehicles are specially equipped for medical care. Helicopters, or rotor-wing aircraft, are fast and maneuverable. They can travel to spaces where a jet wouldn't be able to land, such as a mountain where a patient needs an airlift.

In remote areas or during critical medical emergencies like heart attacks or severe injuries, medevac can make the difference between life and death. These services ensure that patients receive care during transport, often with advanced life-support capabilities and specialized medical staff on board.

What makes an air ambulance different from a regular medical flight? Air ambulances are specially outfitted with advanced medical equipment and staffed by medical crews for continuous in-flight patient care. Regular Medeva flights are just about rapid airborne transport to medical facilities.

Whether you're carrying organs in cargo or flying a patient under an air ambulance operation, you could have the callsign "MEDEVAC" added to your flight. If your medevac flight is inbound or outbound, ATC can give you priority.

A medical flight involves flying on an aircraft on which travelers can benefit from medical assistance from trained professionals. They are mainly used to transport patients for short or long distances.

Because of this, airplanes are usually used when a patient must be transported a long distance, for example, between countries. Airplanes also have the ability to travel at much faster speeds then helicopters. Another consideration for both fixed and rotor wing aircraft is physiologic changes due to altitude.

Patients in critical condition

Air ambulances are basically flying ICUs, meaning they're designed to keep people with severe injuries and medical conditions alive en route to a hospital, or even a stable patient who medically and physically is unable to travel on a commercial flight.

Respiratory rate < 10 or > 35/minute. Heart rate < 60 or > 120/minute. Unresponsive to verbal stimuli. Cardiac, medical, neurological and surgical emergencies.

Ambulance planes are private planes that, like ambulance helicopters, are equipped to the same level as intensive care wards and are therefore able to transfer most intensive care patients, as they also carry an experienced doctor on board. The medical equipment in an ambulance jet can be fitted to a patient's needs.

What is another name for life flight? ›

Medivac: This is another commonly used abbreviation for "medical evacuation." It is essentially an alternative spelling of medevac. Aero-Medical Evacuation (AME): This term is often used in military and aviation contexts to describe medical evacuation operations conducted by aircraft.

The three categories of evacuation in a fire are simultaneous evacuation, vertical or horizontal phased evacuation, and silent alarm evacuation.

MedEvacs typically are needed when there's an accident in a relatively remote place domestically; when someone is outside their home country; or when someone becomes acutely ill and needs to get home for treatment.

Successful candidates hold a medical class 1 certification, a commercial helicopter pilot license, an instrument rating and are 23 years old. Gain 1500hours of flight experience: Within the 1500 hours, candidates need to ensure a certain number are at night, by instrument, cross-country and as the pilot in command.

“Is there a doctor on board?” And the thing is, the answer is pretty much always yes. A doctor may not always be seated in the cabin on your flight, but most commercial airlines are aware that in-flight medical emergencies can happen (I've written about one or two such instances myself in my time at USA TODAY).

An emergency can be either a distress or urgency condition as defined in the Pilot/Controller Glossary. Pilots do not hesitate to declare an emergency when they are faced with distress conditions such as fire, mechanical failure, or structural damage.

While a casevac often evacuates the individual to the nearest medical facility without the resources for en-route care, a medevac has a team of qualified medical professionals on standby during the drive or flight.

Medical emergencies on flights are classified as either health-related or injury-related. Gastrointestinal issues, allergic reactions, shortness of breath, heart attacks and strokes are all examples of health-related issues. Anxiety about the flight, dizziness, and fainting can also result in serious consequences.