![]() It stayed in service until 2005 as one of the Air Force’s primary aeromedical evacuation platforms, undergoing many modifications and improvements. Designed to safely carry litters, gurneys, and ambulatory patients, the C-9A facilitated medical care during flight. The McDonnell Douglas C-9A, called the C-9A Nightingale was unlike other aircraft modified to carry patients. ![]() The Air Force also introduced the first plane specifically designed for aeromedical evacuation in 1968. much more quickly than was ever possible before. Quick evacuation by helicopter, followed by jets, moved casualties to hospitals in Japan, the Philippines and even the U.S. air superiority over much of the theater made rapid and regular casualty evacuations possible. Cam Ranh Bay became the aeromedical evacuation hub for the entire theater.Īeromedical evacuation took many strides during the Vietnam War. By 1968, the Air Force hospital at Cam Ranh Bay Air Base in Vietnam was the second largest in the Air Force, with 475 beds and a casualty staging facility with another 100 beds. Starting in 1966, the Air Force began shipping large, modular 10-foot by 40-foot steel boxes to Vietnam and converting them into stationary hospitals. Local buildings were not suitable, and it became clear that the Air Force needed a deployable solution. The steady aeromedical evacuation and in-theater care performed by the Air Force Medical Service (AFMS) in Southeast Asia drove innovation and evolution in flight medicine and aeromedical evacuation.Īt first, the Air Force did not have adequate fixed medical facilities in Vietnam. Air Force had 1,900 medics conducting medical operations in Southeast Asia. By the height of the Vietnam War in the late 1960’s, the U.S. ![]() Air Force Surgeon General Public AffairsįALLS CHURCH, Va. ![]()
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