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STAT MedEvac orders 10 new Airbus H135 helicopters
March 9, 2022 By Helicopters Staff
STAT MedEvac has a long partnership history with Airbus, including its role as the first air ambulance program in North America to operate the EC135 in 1997. (Photo: Airbus, STAT MedEvac) STAT MedEvac, an Airbus customer for nearly 40 years, ordered 10 new H135 helicopters as part of a fleet renewal initiative for its air medical operations. STAT’s total Airbus fleet, a mix of H135 and H145 family aircraft, operates out of 18 bases in the north eastern United States.
“We’ve been flying Airbus products since we began our operations, and couldn’t imagine it any other way,” said Jim Houser, CEO of STAT Medevac. “Going back to the first North American EC135, we’ve been a key operator of the H135 throughout its upgrades and evolutions, and the H135 has continuously met our mission requirements.”
STAT MedEvac began operations in 1985 and became the first air ambulance program in North America to operate the EC135 in 1997, the first single-pilot IFR program with an EC135 in U.S. Helicopter Emergency Medical Services (HEMS), the launch customer of the latest H135 variant in North America and the launch customer of the Helionix-equipped version in 2019.
The Pennsylvania-based critical care transport provider is the clinical arm for the Center for Emergency Medicine of Western Pennsylvania, and is also the largest single branded, non-profit medical transport system in the Eastern United States.
“With the latest evolution of this proven platform, Airbus aims to continue to meet our EMS customers’ evolving needs to use their helicopters as flying hospitals, and to be able to do so with the latest technologies that reduce pilot workload and increase safety all around,” said Romain Trapp, President of Airbus Helicopters, Inc. and Head of the North American region.
The twin-engine H135 family of aircraft includes Airbus’ Helionix avionics suite and has recently received an alternate gross weight increase for an additional 265lbs of useful load.
Airbus Helicopters states that it provides approximately 55 per cent of the 2,600 EMS helicopters flying in the world today and more than half of all new air medical helicopters sold in the last decade in the U.S.
