UAB Obtains Larger Jet for Critical Medical Flights
Updated on August 31, 2005 at 3:10 p.m.
Posted on June 7, 2005 at 10:45 a.m.
BIRMINGHAM, AL — The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) has upgraded its 23-year-old medical transport aircraft with a $ 4 million jet that can fly farther, faster and with double its previous patient capacity to carry critically ill patients from one hospital to another.
The UAB Critical Care Transport (CCT) service’s 2000 Cessna Citation Bravo has been outfitted for medical-transport modifications, including a unique, wide cargo door, making this the world’s first Bravo to have this modification. The plane can carry two adult stretchers or two isolettes for newborns. CCT transports approximately 400 babies a year, the vast majority born in Alabama and regularly transports infants from Alabama and Mississippi for life-saving cardiac surgery in Boston, Philadelphia, Cleveland and Chicago.
The aircraft will be dedicated in ceremonies today at 6 p.m. at Birmingham International Airport’s Mercury hangar.
The Critical Care Transport program is a valuable community service, and gives UAB the capability of literally delivering ‘medicine that touches the world,’” said Marlon Priest, M.D., medical director of CCT. “With this new aircraft, we now are able to fly someone nonstop from Boston to Birmingham, for example, getting our patients where they need to go and shaving more than two hours off the total flying time of our current jet.
“The new aircraft has advanced avionics that will allow us to fly at higher altitudes, giving us even more efficiency and patient comfort,” Priest said. We’re looking forward to having an aircraft that is large enough for two stretchers and that allows parents to fly with their children.”
Dr. Priest said the previous airplane, a Cessna Citation 500, was at the end of its useful lifespan. It had higher maintenance costs and had become less competitive due to its shorter flight capability. Costly, mandatory upgrades also were a factor in the decision to retire the older jet, he said.
The new aircraft provides for more, and better organized, working space for the medical team. The Bravo’s additional 28 inches in cabin length was optimized into zoned work areas, putting gas and electrical outlets, supplies and medical equipment readily accessible to the registered nurse and respiratory therapist. Removable seating lets the medical team place larger medical equipment such as an intra-aortic balloon pump in the front of the aircraft instead of the rear of the jet, greatly speeding up the loading and unloading process. The aircraft has an enhanced interior lighting system including patient loading lights and lighting inside the drawers and cabinets.
Compared to its predecessor, the plane’s wingspan is 8 feet longer. At a speed of 480 mph, it is 100 mph faster while being more fuel-efficient. The design includes features suggested by the aircraft’s primary mechanic/pilot that will decrease the aircraft’s downtime, keeping it more available for medical transports. In addition, it is equipped with avionics that allow it to fly at higher altitudes, too, providing more capability to fly above bad weather.
Although this aircraft was selected its increased size and speed, it also has the ability to land at small rural airports. This allows CCT to continue to fly to smaller community hospitals that depend on the service.
The CCT service, which also includes four super-sized ambulances configured into mobile ICUs, transports only hospitalized patients from one facility to another, usually from one intensive care unit to another. The jet and vans can maintain patients on life support, such as ventilators and intra-aortic balloon pumps. A liquid-oxygen supply is built into the aircraft; UAB made history in 1983 by having the first civilian aircraft to be outfitted with liquid oxygen.
The CCT is the preferred means of transporting patients of many of UAB’s referring doctors, largely because adult-patient teams include a critical care nurse, a respiratory therapist and as indicated, a physician, all trained in flight medicine, who can maintain and often improve a patient’s condition while en route.
Children’s Hospital provides flight-trained registered nurses and respiratory therapists for flights involving pediatric patients.
Before it was sold, the retired jet was the highest-cycled Cessna 500 in the world, with more than 21,000 take-offs and landings, and had the second-highest amount of airframe time, with more than 16,000 flight hours. CCT has transported over 26,000 patients since 1983 in its air and ground vehicles averaging 600 flights a year
CCT FACT SHEET
- The UAB Critical Care Transport features one of only a few physician-led transport teams in the nation and is available 24/7.
- Patient acuity on a scale of 1.0-5.0, 5 being the most acute, is 4.2.
- It is one of 107 accredited programs in the U.S.
- It is a nationally recognized program and is cited in Volume I & II of the “Best Practices” publications of the Commission of Accreditation of Medial Transport Systems.
- CCT has transported patients to and from 48 states and 38 countries.
- Projected total number of air-transport patients this year is 1,784.
- Most patients are neonatal, pediatric, medical, pulmonary, cardiovascular and neurological.
CESSNA CITATION BRAVO FACTS
- Maximum speed: 480 mph.
- Maximum range: 1,700 miles.
- Wing Span: 51-feet, 7-inches.
- “Two windows” longer than Citation 500, with 28-inches more useable cabin length.
- Modern technology including electronic flight instrument systems, color weather radar, flight guidance system, TCAS (Traffic Collision Avoidance System)TAWS (Terrain Avoidance Warning System) and RVSM (Reduced Vertical Separation Minimum) instrumentation, the latter enabling the aircraft to operate above 29,000 feet.
- Flown with two pilots and capable of transporting two patients, with seating for four medical team members; or one patient with seating for five team members.
- Lifeguard International provides pilots and maintenance.
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 | 2,048 pixels by 1,536 pixels (6.8" by 5.1") Resolution: 300 dpi Format: JPEG (RGB) File Size: 2,320 KB Download Now! Caption: The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) has upgraded its 23-year-old medical transport aircraft with a $ 4 million jet that can fly farther, faster and with double its previous patient capacity to carry critically ill patients from one hospital to another. The UAB Critical Care Transport (CCT) service’s 2000 Cessna Citation Bravo can carry two adult stretchers or two isolettes for newborns. CCT transports approximately 400 babies a year, the vast majority born in Alabama.
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 | 2,100 pixels by 730 pixels (7.0" by 2.4") Resolution: 300 dpi Format: JPEG (RGB) File Size: 668 KB Download Now! Caption: The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) has upgraded its 23-year-old medical transport aircraft with a $ 4 million jet that can fly farther, faster and with double its previous patient capacity to carry critically ill patients from one hospital to another. The UAB Critical Care Transport (CCT) service’s 2000 Cessna Citation Bravo can carry two adult stretchers or two isolettes for newborns. CCT transports approximately 400 babies a year, the vast majority born in Alabama. |
