News Release

Prestigious "Gold Safety of Flight Award" for Tyrol Air Ambulance is first for air ambulance company

The Austrian-based Tyrol Air Ambulance received the EBAA "Gold Safety of Flight Award" in Geneva last Monday, 16 May. It is the first time an air ambulance company was honored with such an award. Transporting 3,000 patients a year, Tyrol Air Ambulance is Europe's number one in this business sector.

Brian Humphries, President of the European Business Aviation Association (EBAA) said during the ceremony in Geneva: "We believe it is important to honor exemplary safety records. The companies that have received these awards epitomize how a long-standing commitment to safety can add up to a model safety record."

Ed Bolen, President of the National Business Aviation Association (NBAA – USA) said:"The organisations we've recognised today have not been content to rest on their laurels. They've made sure to attend key industry safety events, and they've made the safety of flight a part of their organisational culture."

The Gold Safety of Flight Award recognizes 81.000 ambulance flight hours performed by Tyrol Air Ambulance in four decades without an accident (other Safety Award winners mainly operated business charter flights).

Operating from the Alpine town of Innsbruck, Austria, the company has since its inception transported more than 46,000 patients to their destination including VIPs such as the former Czech president Vaclav Havel and the late British prime minister Edward Heath.

Tyrol Air Ambulance's highlights included intensive care patients' evacuation flights from as far as Hawaii to Graz (Austria), or from Bangkok to Chicago. The company has been recognized for its remarkable airlifts for children from crisis regions, i.e. from Chernobyl (1986), Romania (1989/90) or Croatia (1991/92). Tyrol Air Ambulance also transported patients from the Tsunami-affected areas in Thailand in 2004.

The lightest passenger to date was a premature 800-gramm baby, while the heaviest was a 320-kilogramm man.

While the 2011 „Gold Safety of Flight Award", sponsored by the European Business Aviation Association (EBAA), recognizes Tyrol Air Ambulance's safety record, the company's medical standards were acknowledged in November 2010 through the prestigious international EURAMI certificate by the „European Aero-Medical Institute" in 2010.