ABOUT
HALO Air Ambulance is Southern Alberta's only dedicated Helicopter Emergency Medical Service (HEMS) Program. Since our first mission in 2007, HALO Air Ambulance has flown thousands of missions, impacting countless lives.
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Partnering with regional and provincial stakeholders, HALO responds to a variety of calls for services including; emergency medical scene calls, critical care inter-facility patient transfers, search & rescue, fire rescue, and law enforcement incidents, and all-hazard disaster responses.
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The availability of the helicopter, strategically based in Medicine Hat, Alberta, improves the response time to critically ill and injured patients in remote and inaccessible areas and increases our capacity for delivering qualitative medical care and rescue services.
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HALO Air Ambulance operates a BK 117.
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The MBB/Kawasaki BK 117 was jointly developed and manufactured by Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm (MBB) of Germany and Kawasaki of Japan. MBB was later purchased by Daimler-Benz and eventually became a part of Eurocopter, which was later rebranded as Airbus Helicopters.
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The MBB/Kawasaki BK 117 is a twin-engined medium utility–transport helicopter. It possesses several attributes that lend itself to performing many different roles, such as twin-engine redundancy, sizable clamshell-shaped rear-facing double doors, and a relatively spacious cabin; one mission to which it was deemed to be particularly suitable was the emergency medical services (EMS). According to the aviation publication Flying, as a consequence of its uncommon rigid main rotor system, the BK 117 possessed relatively high stability and maneuverability which, amongst other capabilities, reportedly gave the helicopter the ability to perform a steeper approach than any other helicopter in its class. The four-bladed main rotor was smaller and slower-turning than many of its contemporaries, reducing both vibration and noise while also enabling the type to use more compact landing sites. The high-mounted tail boom and tail rotor of the BK 117 also presented several benefits, such as enhanced safety to personnel on the ground.
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