The child was transported together with a medical team on board an aircraft of the 31st Wing of the Italian Air Force
Yesterday evening, 23 September, a 1 and a half year old child, hospitalized at the specialized pediatric hospital "Di Cristina" in Palermo, was transported from Palermo to Genoa, aboard a Falcon 900 Easy aircraft of the 31 ° Stormo of the Italian Air Force. The transport was requested to allow the child to receive specific care at the Piccolo Cottolengo Hospital in Genoa.
The need for humanitarian transport, as required by the procedures, was managed in close coordination with the Prefecture of Palermo, which handled the various phases of the request and in particular the relations with both the health structures concerned and with the Situation Room of the Summit of the Air Squad Command, the operations room of the Air Force which has among its tasks also that of arranging and managing this type of missions through the activation of one of the aircraft that the Armed Force makes available to the community for this kind of need. The Prefecture of Palermo
The child, protected in a thermal cradle and followed by the medical team, was boarded with his parents on board the military aircraft, to take off at about 18.15 pm from Palermo airport.
After about an hour and a half of flight, the military plane reached the "Cristoforo Colombo" international airport in Genoa where the little patient, always protected in the thermal cradle and in compliance with the precautionary measures connected to the Covid-19 health emergency, he was transferred by ambulance for subsequent hospitalization at the Piccolo Cottolengo Hospital in the Ligurian capital.
Through its flight departments, the Italian Air Force provides vehicles and crews ready to take off at any time and able to operate even in critical weather conditions to ensure urgent transport. The case history of the types of intervention is very varied: people in imminent danger of life, particular accidents, people in need of a transplant, medical teams that have to move quickly to take vital organs for the immediate execution of medical transplants, etc.
There are hundreds of flight hours each year for this kind of activity by the aircraft of the 31st Wing of Ciampino, the 14th Wing of Pratica di Mare and the 46th Air Brigade of Pisa.