The special life-saving flight ended in the evening with a landing at Ciampino for the subsequent transfer to the Bambino Gesu hospital.

The emergency medical transport from Bari to Rome of a four-year-old child in imminent danger of life was successfully completed this evening, landing at the military airport of Ciampino, with a C-130J of the Italian Air Force.

The Prefectural Authority of the Puglia region requested emergency air transport, followed – after a rapid coordination with the relevant healthcare facilities – by the order to take off from the Operations Room of the Air Operations Command of Poggio Renatico (Ferrara) for one of the crews of the 46th Air Brigade, always ready to take off for this type of intervention.

The aircraft, which took off from the Pisa base, then headed to Bari, where it boarded the ambulance with the baby on board for the transfer to Rome, where it was expected to be transferred and admitted to the Bambino Gesù pediatric hospital.

This particular type of medical transport has allowed to minimize the time of the patient’s transfer, while ensuring constant monitoring and medical assistance given the child’s critical condition.

The Air Force’s equipment and transport aircraft are ready every single day of the year, 24 hours a day, to ensure, where requested and deemed necessary for reasons of urgency, the medical transport of people in imminent danger of life, organs or medical teams, or as in this case of people needing to be transferred to specialized care centers in the national territory. Every year, hundreds of hours of flight are performed for this type of intervention by the aircraft of the 31st Stormo of Ciampino, the 14th Stormo of Pratica di Mare and the 46th Aereonautic Brigade of Pisa, as happened in this mission. The Pisa Aereonautic Brigade is the only one, in particular, that can guarantee this type of transport, which also includes the boarding of the ambulance. This is an essential capability when the patient’s conditions require constant medical care and tight transfer times; a capability that the Air Force and the Defense have made available to the country extensively during the Covid emergency for air transport in bio-containment.