Medical Evacuation Operation

On August 18, the Armed Forces in French Polynesia (FAPF) command deployed the Dauphin helicopter of the 35F Detachment based in Tahiti to carry out the longest medical evacuation mission ever carried out by this aircraft.

In order to rescue a person in a critical medical condition, the helicopter flew a distance of 3,426 km -- equivalent to the distance between Helsinki and Gibraltar – in 14 flight hours.

Located 1,375 km from Tahiti, the person in distress was on a minor archipelago without an airstrip, and so impossible to reach by airplane. Two aircraft, an Airbus Dauphin N3+ helicopter and a Dassault Falcon 200 Gardian fixed-wing aircraft, were used for the rescue.

The Dauphin N3+ helicopter belonging to the Tahiti-based detachment of 35F naval air squadron, recovered the wounded man from Tenarunga atoll and took him to Moruroa, from where a Gardian plane evacuated him to Tahiti.

The success of this operation is due to the teamwork and the skills of the personnel of the FAPF command, which carried out the precise planning and rigorous implementation necessary to combine speed of execution, personnel security and efficiency.

These qualities are indispensable throughout the year: helicopters from the Navy and their crews are constantly alert to be ready to quickly assist people in distress.

Working on this mission together with other Navy assets capable of long deployments on the high seas, and thus able to intervene rapidly far from the coast (ships, and surveillance and maritime patrol aircraft), they make it possible to save in average 300 lives a year.