Minister of Emergency Situations Vladimir Puchkov has held today a working meeting in the city of Simferopol to discuss further development of Ministry’s aviation and said that within next three years the Ministry will increase the number of its aircraft with upgraded planes and helicopters, including those adapted to operate in the Arctic.
Therefore, Mr. Puchkov set a task to plan all supplies of new aircraft. “Crews for new aircraft, including the ones for the Arctic, should be trained in advance,” he said and added that the Ministry is expecting some additional supply of Beriyev Be-200 planes sometime soon. New upgraded Ilyushin Il-76 planes made by the Ulyanovsk Aircraft Plant, Il-114 planes for regional centers, Mil Mi-26 helicopters and latest Mil Mi-8 helicopters manufactured at the Kazan Aircraft Plant and the plant in Ulan-Ude are planned to be purchased within next three years.
“They have to be multipurpose, outfitted with specialized equipment, including that for medical evacuation and for other rescue operations,” Mr. Puchkov said.
It was also mentioned that by the end of the year the Emergency Ministry will purchase and supply more than 750 UAVs: 650 Phantom 3 Advanced outfitted with cameras and 107 Arnega-DSTI with cameras and infrared imager. The first batch of 250 UAVs has been already received and is now being dispatched to Ministry’s divisions. In all, the number of drones used by the Emergency Ministry will exceed 1,000 by the end of the year.
UAV centers were established in all Russian regions a year ago following the Minister’s order.
“They will allow detecting seats of wildfires, threats and risks on early stages, monitoring the situation in real time and modeling further development. Drones can go into dangerous situations that would pose a risk to responders and they minimize costs of involving additional resources,” the Minister said.
The Ministry’s current air fleet has 68 aircraft, including 17 planes and 51 helicopters. According to Acting Director of the Department for UAV Air Rescue Technologies Konstantin Moiseyenko, in 2016, Emergency Ministry’s aircraft rescued more than 1,650 people, transported more than 62,000 rescuers and firemen, delivered more than 11,000 tons of cargo, including 496 tons of relief goods. Additionally, planes and helicopters have made more than 2,700 rounds dropping about 19,000 tons of fire retardants onto wildfires this year.
“More than 60,000 homes were protected in Khakassia and Transbaikalian Territory by joint efforts of fire and rescue divisions, emergency services and Emergency Ministry’s aircraft,” said Mr. Moiseyenko.
Deputy Head of the National Crisis Management Center Sergei Vorontsov noted that 4 seriously-ill people, including 3 children were transported this year from abroad in 4 medical evacuations. “71 medical evacuations have been carried out across Russia. Planes transported more than 300 seriously-ill people, including 241 children. In addition, 189 people were evacuated by helicopters, including 36 children,” he said.
According to Mr. Vorontsov there are air bridges in the most needed directions via which the injured are airlifted to specialized medical facilities in the country.
