Service helicopter used for medical transfers from Guernsey

Emergency service helicopters will now be used to fly patients from Guernsey to the UK overnight

Plans to fly medical air transfer (medevacs) patients from Guernsey to the UK via a civilian helicopter have been amended.

Contingency plans were put in place to continue to provide medevacs overnight while Guernsey's airport was closed for essential maintenance.

The States of Guernsey said weather conditions would not be clear enough for a commercial helicopter to fly in.

Instead, the coastguard or military helicopters will now be used.

It said: "Due to the long-range weather forecast the contingency plans for the overnight medevac arrangements during the airport closure have been amended.

"The planned commercial helicopter relies on ground-based instrumentation when landing in poor visibility whereas the coastguard and military vehicles have this instrumentation on board - which means they are able to operate in more challenging weather conditions."

Guernsey Airport is to close overnight between Monday and 1 May for maintenance on ground lighting systems.

Port Soif car park will remain closed between 20:00 and 07:00 BST to allow room for helicopters to land in an emergency evacuation.

"Islanders are asked to respect the car park closure and to keep away from the area if the helicopter is needed for an emergency evacuation," the States said.

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