On Wednesday, January 29, 2025, Polish Medical Air Rescue (LPR) announced that its fleet of 27 Airbus EC135/H135 helicopters, operated by medical rescue crews, has exceeded half a million landings. These rotorcraft have landed this many times while carrying out HEMS medical rescue missions, inter-hospital transports, training flights, and technical operations.
Photo: Christian D. Keller, Airbus Helicopters
Earlier, on January 8, 2025, Polish Medical Air Rescue announced that its helicopter fleet had surpassed a total flight time of 125,000 hours.
As mentioned, Polish Medical Air Rescue operates 27 Airbus H135 rescue helicopters (previously designated as Eurocopter EC135), including 23 in the P2+ version and 4 in the P3 version, as well as one flight simulator. These were delivered between 2009–2010 (P2+) and 2015 (P3). The helicopters are stationed at 21 permanent bases across Poland and one seasonal base in Koszalin, which operates during the summer holiday period.
They replaced the outdated Mi-2 Plus helicopters, which were retired in 2011, as well as a single Agusta A109 Power helicopter, which was lost in a crash on November 20, 2009 (having been in service since 2005). Notably, the need for purchasing six additional HEMS helicopters has been highlighted, but so far, it has not received approval from the Ministry of Health.
Complementing the fleet, as part of the Fixed-Wing Transport Team, are two Bombardier Learjet 75 Liberty aircraft and one Piaggio P.180 Avanti II (a single Piaggio P.180 Avanti I was retired from service in May 2024).
Meanwhile, on January 2 of this year, it was reported that 2024 was the busiest year in the 25-year history of Polish Medical Air Rescue. A total of 12,728 emergency calls were received, including 12,314 for the Helicopter Emergency Medical Service (HEMS) teams and 414 for the Fixed-Wing Transport Team.
The helicopters were dispatched 10,997 times for accidents and sudden illnesses, and 1,317 times for inter-hospital transports. The most common reasons for emergency calls included: road accidents (2,259), stroke (1,531), sudden cardiac arrest (1,030), falls from height (645), and thermal burns (407).
In 2024, there were 14 incidents where a decision was made to deploy three rescue helicopters to a single event. Additionally, four helicopters were dispatched simultaneously on one occasion. In total, HEMS crews assisted 9,882 patients, of whom 7,970 were transported to hospitals aboard helicopters. Among all patients, 1,666 were children. The oldest patients were 101 years old, with three individuals of this age receiving assistance last year. Meanwhile, crews attended to four newborns.
The EC135/H135 helicopters and Piaggio and Learjet aircraft operated by Polish Medical Air Rescue spent over 9,735 hours in the air last year.
The HEMS bases that carried out the highest number of missions were:
- 24/7 bases: Kraków (1,028 missions), Warsaw (813), and Lublin (806)
- Bases operating from 7 AM to 8 PM: Katowice (662), Szczecin (648), Łódź (557), and Opole (532)
The busiest day for crews in 2024 was August 16, when helicopters carried out a total of 69 missions. The highest number of takeoffs in a single day was 8, achieved by the crews in Kraków and Lublin.
“The record number of HEMS missions was undoubtedly influenced by the extension of duty hours in the Poznań and Lublin bases starting January 1, 2024. For the first time in history, the annual statistics included as many as six 24/7 bases,” said Justyna Sochacka, spokesperson for Polish Medical Air Rescue. For the last four months, the HEMS base in Białystok also temporarily operated 24/7.
Based on press information