Brazil's first Airbus Aeromedical Transport Symposium concluded this week at São Paulo Campo de Marte Airport, home to Airbus Helicopters subsidiary Helibras and to several helicopter emergency medical services (HEMS) firms. Speakers at the two-day event included Airbus HEMS specialist Ralph Setz; national civil defense disaster director Élcio Alves Barbosa; Thomas Gassmann of ADAC Training Academy in Germany; and Col. Carlos Eduardo Falconi of the São Paulo police, responsible for medical evacuation for the state’s 44 million inhabitants.
The audience consisted mainly of HEMS users, oil-and-gas-helicopter operators, highway concessionaires and doctors, as well as government regulatory authorities such as Brazil’s civil aviation agency ANAC and state secretaries of health.
There also was a static display of a police Airbus Helicopters AS350B2 in aeromedical configuration, a Uniair Táxi Aéreo AS350B2 and an AS365 belonging to Airjet. The latter operator held a debate on the challenges of the aeromedical market in Brazil in its hangar yesterday.