Wiltshire Air Ambulance has confirmed why the life-saving charity’s helicopter is currently offline, but can’t say when it’ll be back.
The aircraft was flown to Thruxton Aerodrome in early October, where it was booked in to receive its annual scheduled maintenance.
However, as an unrelated upgrade to the avionics system would be needed next year, the charity brought this work forward in order to increase the helicopter’s availability in 2022.
Scheduled maintenance takes Wiltshire Air Ambulance’s helicopter, G-WLTS, offline for up to one month each year. With the additional work, it could be offline for much longer.
The air ambulance isn’t expected to return to the county’s skies until November.
“G-WLTS went offline in early October to receive its annual scheduled maintenance, which normally requires 3 to 4 weeks to complete”, a spokesperson told Wiltshire 999s.
They continued: “On this occasion, it was also necessary to include additional modification and upgrade works to the avionics system.
“Due to the slightly longer down time, it was deemed appropriate to anticipate an amount of airframe scheduled maintenance due early in the new year in order to increase availability in 2022.
“In the meantime we continue to attend incidents in our Rapid Response Vehicles, while being supported by our neighbouring air ambulances in the same way that we support them.”
