Airplanes and their crews are used to weird situations and every journey is different and unique, like the travel of the Boeing 737 jet from The Independent airline that went from Israel to Morocco.
Desperate situations require desperate solutions, and that is why this plane flew about 2,500 miles on April 26th in order to pick an Israeli businessman that required medical treatment, and that was the only traveler on the flight LY5051.
The jet has seats for 160 passengers but it was a special private seven-hour flight that was quickly prepared for the man’s wellbeing. It was an ambulance flight organized by the company Madassis Medical Flights that was in charge of bringing an intensive care team and advanced medical equipment into the plane.
Madassis Medical Flights is dedicated to medical intensive care flights, which costs will depend on the sickness of the patient and the attendants and equipment they require, so the man paid for their services. The company’s director, Dr. Ami Mayo, is Assuta’s Intensive Care Manager and was overseeing the whole flight.
The El Al plane was tracked all of the time by the website FlightRadar24, which showed that it left Tel Aviv at 2:20 pm and arrived at Casablanca nearly seven hours later. Then immediately returned to Tel Aviv in a five-hour flight, so it was back by 3 a.m from the next day.
A local aviation reporter, called Itay Blumental, documented the whole journey through Twitter, where it quickly gained attention due to the tremendous nature of the situation. There were a lot of questions such as who was the patient, who was responsible for the flight, and the costs of this type of treatment, which he answered as much as he could.
This was a very unusual flight since not all planes are prepared for this type of situation. They have to be relatively small aircraft, rather than a business one, especially if it is going to be a short flight like this one. Also, the pilot and the crew need several permits and capacitation, along with special equipment that can support the high pressures.
The identity of the man was never revealed, and neither was the illness he was presenting and the provided treatment. There isn’t more news about his current state, but we hope the emergency was resolved. This sure was a once-in-a-lifetime experience that blew everyone’s minds.
