The mission in favor of a compatriot awaiting a transplant The Sala Situazioni, having authorized the mission, then ordered its immediate execution at the 31st Air Wing Operations Room and at 10 a.m. a Falcon 50 from the unit took off towards the Sicilian capital where it picked up the patient. The man, suffering from extremely severe heart failure refractory to medical treatments, was then transported to the Venice Tessera Airport, where an ambulance from the Padua Hospital Department was waiting for him for the subsequent hospitalization in the Cardiochirurgia Department. In the following hours the patient underwent the heart transplant operation. The aircraft of the 31st Air Wing of the Italian Air Force perform a dual institutional mission: State Transport and Emergency Medical Transport, including Humanitarian Transport and interventions in case of public disasters. For healthcare activities in favor of fellow citizens in need in Italy and abroad, the aircraft and crews of the 31st Stormo have a ready-to-deploy capability of only two hours 365 days a year, 24 hours a day.
