Ocean City approves IFR Helicopter program for critical care response

OCEAN CITY, Md- The Ocean City Council Tuesday approved an Instrument Flight Rules autopilot system for the joint Maryland State Police and Ocean City Fire Department critical care response efforts.

Currently, on days with high fog or rain, visibility can be limited preventing the response helicopters from flying from the Salisbury Airport to Ocean City, and straight to Shock Trauma or Johns Hopkins in Baltimore.

“As it stands right now, we would have to either fly to an airport or we would have the patient transported by ground from Ocean City over to the Salisbury Airport and rendezvous with the flight crew in order to be flown up to a specialty center in Baltimore,” said Jonathan Larson of MSP Aviation Command adding, that trip can increase times during a patient’s golden hour, immediately after injury, in which intervention is the most successful.

But this first-of-its-kind program in Maryland- is looking to give pilots a path through those conditions, offering an autopilot system that creates a set path through the fog for a helicopter to fly “on rails” before landing on a portable landing zone lighting system to be deployed at Northside park.

The landing zone will be different every time and will be deployed by the Ocean City Fire Department when they transport the patient to the park for rapid transit.

“Crews will arrive at the scene, secure the area, and put these lights down, and then once the helicopter lands and after they take off again and the patient is transported,” said OC FD Chief Richard Bowers

“What this will enable our flight crews to do is fly in nonoptimal conditions when the weather is rather than this high inclement flight,” Larson said.

Bowers says the program will be a game changer for the department, and the outcomes that patients can expect.

“For them to be able to come in and fly by and land by instruments is huge. It will save lives,” he said.

The program is set to start in Spring of 2024.