The mission was carried out with HH-139B helicopter in cooperation with a team of the National Alpine and Speleological Rescue Corps
At 14.20 pm yesterday, a crew of the 82nd CSAR Center (Combat Search And Rescue) of the Italian Air Force based in Trapani took off for a rescue mission with HH-139B helicopter to recover a man taken ill at the Park of the Madonie.
The helicopter headed to Palermo Boccadifalco airport to embark an operational team of the CNSAS (National Alpine and Speleological Rescue Corps) and then headed towards the area of operations.
Arriving in the area, around 15:00, the crew immediately lowered the aircraft rescuer and the CNSAS team to the ground with the winch, who quickly headed towards the recovery point, inaccessible by ambulances or other means of transport. rescue. After securing the man, the HH-139B crew then carried out the extraction of the patient by winch and, subsequently, of the whole team on the ground, leaving the area of operations at 15.15.
A few minutes later, the helicopter landed on the pitch of the Petralia Sottana hospital, where the patient was entrusted to the medical care of health personnel.
The crew, after having made a stopover at Palermo Boccadifalco airport to disembark the CNSAS team, then returned to the military base of Trapani Birgi, where it landed at 16:30. The crew then resumed normal national SAR readiness service pending a potential subsequent mission order.
The intervention was initiated at the request of the CNSAS and coordinated by the Operations Room of the Rescue Coordination Center (RCC) of the Aerospace Operations Command of Poggio Renatico (FE), which activated the crew in H24 alert readiness of the 82nd Center CSAR
The 82nd Center is one of the Departments of the 15th Wing of the Italian Air Force which guarantees, 24 hours a day, 24 days a year, without interruption, the search and rescue of flight crews in difficulty, competing, moreover, to activities of public utility such as the search for missing persons at sea or in the mountains, the emergency medical transport of patients in imminent danger of life and the rescue of seriously traumatized patients, also operating in marginal weather conditions.
In these days, moreover, the staff and assets of the 82nd CSAR Center are constantly engaged in the Forest Fire Campaign (AIB), following the agreement signed between the Ministry of Defense and the Department of Civil Protection.