The transport, which lasted about 11 hours, was carried out with a Falcon 900 aircraft equipped for health care on board.
After a flight of about 11 hours, he arrived this afternoon to 13.30 about landed in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the Falcon 900 Easy plane of the Italian Air Force which transported a 5-year-old Italian girl suffering from a rare disease from Italy to allow her to receive experimental treatment at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center ( UPMC).
The transport with this aircraft, which is equipped for medical assistance on board, was necessary due to the serious health conditions of the little patient.
The Falcon 900, supplied to the 31 ° Stormo of Ciampino, had taken off around 1:40 am last night from his base, where the child had been transported by ambulance from the Agostino Gemelli University Hospital in Rome.
The humanitarian protocol was activated thanks to an intense coordination work between the two hospitals, the Office of the Defense Attaché and Defense Cooperation at the Embassy of Italy in Washington DC, the Flight Office of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers and the Top Situations Room of the Air Squad Command, the operations room of the Air Force which also has among its tasks that of organizing and managing this kind of interventions in favor of the Italian population.
A medical team of the Gemelli Polyclinic has traveled with the child and his family.
Every day the Air Force crews and transport aircraft are ready to take off in a very short time for public utility missions, such as the emergency medical transport of patients in imminent danger of life or in any case in situations of risk, in addition to the transport of organs and medical teams for transplants. There are thousands of flight hours each year by the aircraft of the 31st Wing of Ciampino, the 14th Wing of Pratica di Mare and the 46a Pisa Air Brigade.
In 2018 the 31 ° Stormo aircraft have already transported around 40 patients, many of them children, and over 100 passengers between medical and nursing staff.