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Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - The Jordan Air Ambulance Centre (JAAC) began operations in August 2015 and is equipped with two new Leonardo Helicopters medically-equipped AW139 helicopters, one of which was displayed at Sofex in Amman.

The JAAC is located at Amman Civil Airport at Marka and has 42 personnel including six pilots and eight paramedics.

The AW139s are fitted with a comprehensive range of medical equipment for air evacuation operations installed by the Austrian company, Air Ambulance Technology, including heart monitoring and defibrillators, respirators and oxygen monitoring equipment.

The centre provides an essential EMS capability in the region where specialist hospitals are restricted to few cities and ground transportation is limited by Jordan’s road network.

The JAAC pilots are authorised to land at all heliports in Jordan, spread over more than 45 locations as well as providing medical evacuation from neighbouring countries including the north of Saudi Arabia and Palestine.

Response time is 15 minutes from time of request of service. The AW139s are flown by two pilots with two paramedics, or one with a doctor. The paramedics trained in the US while the pilots, most of them former Jordanian Air Force pilots, train in Abu Dhabi where the UAE Air Force has an AW139 simulator.

The JAAC is anticipating that it will carry out 250 medical evacuations during 2016 while demand will rise to 400 a year by 2020.

In order to cope with this expected demand, the JAAC has a requirement for a third AW139 but this will be subject to future funding. JAAC also plans to open a second base at King Hussein International Airport in Aqaba and subsequently other locations to improve the centre’s emergency response time.

*Shephard Media