Six Airbus Helicopters Join Iran's Air Fleet

Six Airbus helicopters of the 'air ambulance' type have been added to Iran's emergency fleet. These helicopters can reduce rescue operation times from two hours to about half an hour in crowded cities in Iran. They are equipped with an air ICU with a capacity for 8 people, including the pilot, and are used for assisting road and intercity accident victims. This product has the capacity for three patients. Hassan Ghazizadeh Hashemi, Iran's Minister of Health, stated at the inauguration ceremony of these six helicopters that 'currently, we need 80 helicopters, and with the launch of these six helicopters, the number of emergency helicopters in the country has reached 46. We need the same number of helicopters for the country's air emergency services to reach an optimal quantitative condition.' While the Minister of Health announces the operation of 46 helicopters for medical and rescue purposes in Iran, apart from the six Airbus helicopters, most of Iran's helicopters are either old Bell types with very high ages or Russian Mi-17 and Mi-8 helicopters that are responsible for rescue operations. Due to the old age of most rescue helicopters in Iran, several of these helicopters have experienced accidents and crashes during rescue operations. Mohammad Sarvar, the head of the country's air emergency department, also mentioned that '56 percent of the total number of injured and patients transferred were related to traffic accidents, and 25 percent were related to non-traffic accidents. Additionally, 10 percent of air emergency missions were related to the transfer of pregnant mothers, six percent were related to heart patients, and three percent were related to stroke patients.' The new helicopters are of the BK 117 C-1 type, which is originally developed from one of Kawasaki's helicopters in Japan and is produced under the Eurocopter EC145 models after the acquisition of this company by Airbus. This helicopter uses a turbo-shaft engine with a power of 700 horsepower. This engine is used in many advanced helicopters today, such as the Sikorsky S-76 and Augusta AW109. This engine is manufactured by Safran, a French engine manufacturer, which is one of the strongest aircraft engine manufacturers in the world. Airbus Helicopters was formed in 1992 by merging Aerospatiale and the German company Daimler-Benz under the name Eurocopter, and its name was changed to Airbus Helicopters in 2014. Due to Iran's geographical diversity and conditions, a wide range of helicopters for various operations is required. This need is assessed to require more than 400 new helicopters for Iran's transportation fleet.