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SAS 737 Medical Air Transport

Flexibility in Action

When a tragic nightclub fire in Gothenburg, Sweden, resulted in the deaths of 63 young citizens in 1998, members of the Swedish government realized they had no way to quickly evacuate citizens in a mass emergency. Ambulances, buses, taxis and helicopters transported hundreds of injured to nearby hospitals, filling them to capacity. A new strategy was necessary. The events of Sept. 11, 2001, drove home the point.

Responding to a worldwide request for proposal, SAS Technical Services, a branch of Scandinavian Airlines System, devised a turnkey medical air transport system capable of providing intensive care service while flying patients out of the emergency area.

The SAS-designed and certified system converts a commercial Next-Generation 737 into a flying hospital and then returns it back to commercial configuration." Within six hours, airline seats are removed from their tracks and medical equipment is locked into place," said Sven Reiner, vice president, engineering services at SAS Technical Services. A fully equipped 737 is capable of treating and transporting up to six intensive care patients, six to 18 stretcher patients and 23 walking wounded or relatives along with a medical crew of 19.

The system is flexible and requires no structural modification. "You can install a few components on a BBJ or a helicopter or a complete system on a 737 jetliner," explains Reiner. "It was a challenge to find standard medical equipment that was lightweight and yet capable of meeting regulatory transport requirements," he said, but the SAS team did just that.

As part of its ongoing contract, SAS stores and maintains the equipment for the government, and makes one of its 737s available for transformation at a moment's notice. Medical technicians perform frequent checks, and replenish the system with the most up-to-date medical equipment. Having the equipment on hand and ready to use at all times is only part of the solution. Since 2005, the Swedish government has successfully conducted yearly emergency exercises using the Advanced Medical Air Transport System. Above: Medical personnel attend to a patient during an emergency exercise.
Passenger seats are removed and replaced with medical equipment on a SAS Next-Generation 737-800. To date, the Swedish government has ordered one full shipset of the SAS Advanced Medical Air Transport System and has recently asked for a quotation of a second shipset to be delivered end of 2009.