#Hawaii Life Flight

Hawaiʻi Life Flight has added three refurbished Beechcraft King Air C90 aircraft to its fleet of 10. The addition enhances the company’s ability to provide rapid, life-saving care across the Hawaiian Islands, said Jacob Mayer, program director for Hawaiʻi Life Flight.

Joint Rescue Coordination Center Honolulu watchstanders received a notification at 1 p.m. Wednesday from the Hawaiʻi Department of Health, requesting transport for a 44-year-old patient who was experiencing a severe abdominal condition.

The Coast Guard and Hawaiʻi Life Flight medically transported an ailing 58-year-old man from the Maui Memorial Medical Center to the Straub Medical Center on Oʻahu, Monday. The man had suffered cardiac arrest while on Maui and was in need of transport with advanced critical care.

AirMedCare Network, a national air ambulance membership network, announced Monday it has implemented a 120-day grace period for active subscribers in Maui whose memberships are expiring within that time frame.

The flight crew and the majority of the wreckage from the Hawaiʻi Life Flight was recovered on Tuesday, Jan. 10 from an area in the ocean about 6,420 feet deep. This was about 1,200 feet south of the last data point received from the missing aircraft, according to the NTSB.

Based on the NTSB report, the airplane wreckage sank in the “open ocean” in an area known as the Maui Channel, with an estimated water depth of 6,000 ft. “Deep water search and recovery efforts are pending,” according to the agency.

Hawaiʻi Life Flight today announced it is returning to service this week, with crew members returning to service at their personal discretion.

The extension of this emergency proclamation allows our state to continue providing staffing resources needed to ensure seamless availability of emergency transportation.

The medical transport aircraft, a King Air twin-engine propeller plane, went down just over a week ago. Global Medical Response, owners of Hawaii Life Flight, confirmed last week the crew was en route to pick up a patient in Waimea when it disappeared from radar.

Governor Josh Green, M.D. authorized the emergency use of the National Guard MEDEVAC helicopters and the select crews to temporarily support the Hawaiʻi Life Flight/Global Medical Response safety stand down after a medical transport flight went missing in waters off of East Maui last week.

The search continues for a missing aircraft and the three crew members aboard in waters off of East Maui.

“The emergency proclamation gives the state the ability to supplement Hawai‘i’s medical airlift capacity with aircraft and flight crews from other states and permits out-of-state actively licensed and certified emergency medical personnel to be employed as certified flight paramedics and registered nurses on medical transport aircrafts.

A spokesperson for Hawaii Life Flight tells Maui Now, “Global Medical Response can confirm that one of our Hawaiʻi Life Flight emergency fixed wing airplanes based in Maui, went off radar while enroute to pick up a patient in Waimea Big Island.”