Public Notice of Virtual Community Engagement Workshop
Release Date: 10/14/2020 12:00:00 AM
LifeFlight of Maine, recognized nationally and internationally for safety, quality and innovation, is engaged in a comprehensive private/public project to improve aviation medicine through the establishment of performance-based navigation instrument flight routes. These routes will join communities with major medical centers. The first route structure currently being developed will connect Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center and Bar Harbor. A second route will connect Bar Harbor to Portland.
To inform and engage the community, LifeFlight will hold two online community workshops: Tuesday November 17th and Thursday November 19th at 6:30pm.
To receive a link invitation to participate in this Zoom meeting please contact LifeFlight at info@lifeflightmaine.org
Maine has complex aviation weather and LifeFlight, the Maine Department of Transportation, the Maine Department of Public Safety and the Federal Aviation Administration have been working cooperatively for many years to improve aviation infrastructure in Maine and enhance safety. In this new project LifeFlight is working with the FAA to develop a network of low-level instrument helicopter flight routes (IFR) joining LifeFlight’s existing point-in-space procedures and airports with a flight route structure enhancing LifeFlight’s safety and reliability in serving communities across Maine. Once these are established LifeFlight and the FAA will complete a route linking all LifeFlight’s instrument flight procedures.
For Maine this means significantly improved access to time-critical emergency care. The route structure is a component of the ‘NextGen’ air traffic control system and will enable LifeFlight’s fleet of state-of-the-art helicopters to safely transport critically ill and injured patients from community hospitals and rural areas.
