Airplane Transport

Long-distance transport and all-weather flight are optimized by the use of airplanes (fixed-wing aircraft).

LifeFlight’s Beechcraft King Air B200 provides greater speed and efficiency over long distances and improves all-weather capability. For example, it can climb through freezing rain and fog, which are facts of life in Maine.

Our airplane has a cruising speed of 350 miles per hour with a 1,000-mile range. The aircraft is pressurized, uses IFR (instrument flight rules) and state-of-the-art navigation, and is flown with two pilots.

Like all of our aircraft and ambulances, our airplane is equipped as a mobile ICU.

The King Air was added to the LifeFlight fleet in May 2015 and promptly underwent extensive upgrades to its wings, propellers, and instrument panel. These upgrades allow the plane to operate on shorter runways, which increases the number of small airports in Maine at which it can land.

The aircraft is equipped with state-of-the-art avionics that offer improved navigation, weather, and instrument flight capabilities. It also has a satellite phone that allows the medical crew to speak with specialty physicians while on the ground or in the air.

The fixed-wing is ideal in supporting transports from Aroostook County and has an effective range to the Midwest (Ohio and Michigan) to the mid-Atlantic (North Carolina) for highly specialized care and transport. In addition, the fixed-wing allows patients to return to the U.S. from Toronto to Prince Edward Island to Halifax, Canada, and supports mutual aid for Boston MedFlight to Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard.

As with the helicopters and ground ambulances, our teams work seamlessly across all vehicle types, and each vehicle is configured to support critical patients including:

• Advanced ventilators
• Invasive cardiac and neuro-monitoring
• Multiple infusion pumps
• Laboratory
• Ultrasound
• An ICU pharmacy
• Blood and plasma product
• Advanced resuscitation and trauma care

The vehicles can be reconfigured with specialized newborn transport isolettes, intra-aortic and ventricular assist devices, tandem hearts, and ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) for patients needing cardiopulmonary bypass.