Jetcall is a German air ambulance operator transporting an excess of 400 patients each year, with missions from and to Europe, Asia, Africa, America and Australia.
Typically, air ambulance services are provided in an environment requiring a lot of flexibility in planning, very short activation times, 24h execution capability or mission profile.
Jetcall operations are available 24/7, which means that flight crews will frequently fly during night time or may have to face challenging and demanding situations from a meteorological point of view. In these conditions, availability of the most capable technology on board the aircraft becomes crucial to ensure the patient/s are transferred safely and on time to the medical centres where to continue their treatments and/or cares.
During the last quarter of 2017, the benefits provided by EGNOS-enabled LPV200 became clear to ensure the resilience of Jetcall’s services. In fact, by 14th September 2017, a couple of NOTAMs were published for Frankfurt Hahn (EDFH) airport, due to NDB maintenance works. As a consequence, “ALL STANDARD ILS OR LOC APCH PROC FROM IAF HAN NDB” were temporarily suspended.
The LPV approaches published for EDFH remain unaffected by the NDB unavailability, and Jetcall’s LPV-capable Learjet 45 was able to conduct SBAS CAT-I approaches during the period. The pilots and patients on-board benefitted, in addition, from the smooth transitioning between flight segments of the on board avionics, down to the 200ft minima and the runway.