Clearly someone somewhere high up has auth'd the mission as a UK air ambulance company has already repatriated a patient on Saturday from Tunisia to Wales.
C17 makes sense with an augmented CCAST team in particular with the types of injury sustained, civilian operators have little experience of dealing with gunshot trauma in the in-flight environment. Most civilian AAs are based on the LJ35/36 or King Air/Cheyenne airframes. They are not big enough for a mass casualty evacuation. The only companies that I know that has more than one/two stretcher capable A/C are IAS and Phoenix Air in the USA who use G3s. To use a civil airliner would take time to assemble both material and personnel.
Voyager will have been cleared for medevacs but you need a high lifter to access the cabin a C17 is tried and tested.
Hangershuffle, it may appear slow but you are in an environment where local medical teams will have limited experience, equipment and things like blood and blood products in managing gunshot injuries unlike Camp bastion which was so experienced and knew when it was safe to move patients following resuscitative battle damage surgery. Thankfully in the UK we now have a large number of surgeons and medical teams experienced in this form of surgery back in the NHS and development continues through the Royal College of Surgeons.
Last edited by air pig; 29th Jun 2015 at 16:52.