LifeFlight Townsville complete record number of missions in 2024 financial year

LifeFlight Australia flew a record number of missions from its Townsville base in the 2024 financial year.

Townsville’s LifeFlight aeromedical crew flew 153 missions in FY24, helping 322 people and achieving a 13 per cent increase from the 284 people helped in the previous financial year. Picture: Josh Woning

LifeFlight Australia flew a record number of missions from its Townsville base in the 2024 financial year.

In total, Townsville’s LifeFlight aeromedical crew flew 153 missions to assist 322 people, a 13 per cent increase of the previous financial year.

“Our highly skilled intensive care medical teams and pilots, and their rapid aeromedical intervention can often be the difference between life and death,” LifeFlight Medical Director Dr Jeff Hooper said on Sunday.

“That’s why our work is so important to people living in regional Queensland and abroad.” 

LifeFlight helicopters, air ambulance jets, critical care doctors, flight nurses and Queensland Ambulance Service flight paramedics helped 8173 people in FY24 – an 11.2 per cent increase on FY23. 

The Townsville base is celebrating its 15th year in operation.

A critically ill Mark Richardson being loaded on LifeFlight's Air Ambulance Jet in Bali. The Australian surfing identity was flown from Bali to Darwin following complications from a stomach ulcer which left him with severe internal bleeding. Picture: Supplied

LifeFlight’s Singapore-based air ambulance also had a busy year, airlifting 98 people.

It included evacuating Keith Davis and Kerry Jordan from Bangkok to Australia after they were injured when their Singapore Airlines flight was hit by severe turbulence in May.

LifeFlight executive Tyson Smith said the jets provided coverage from Townsville, Brisbane and Singapore, extending the network over two continents.

“We’re one of a few aeromedical providers with integrated bases on two continents,” he said.

“Through our Townsville jet we can deploy quickly to the far north or Central Queensland so we can bring patients back to major airports and hospitals.”

Dr Hooper said it continued to lead the aeromedical sector with “world-leading standards of care”.

“Our teams have the specialist emergency medicine skills required to provide the best available treatment to people even while operating 30,000 feet above the ground.”

The Mount Isa-based LifeFlight aeromedical crew, meanwhile, helped 115 people in the financial year ending June, beating the previous record of 96 in FY23 by nearly 20 per cent.

It was the organisation’s 17th year in the North-West where the Mount Isa crews rescued people with a range of needs, included search and rescues of people lost in the outback, bogged in vehicles or injured by animals.

The crew spent 159 hours in the air travelling vast distances to help people in often highly remote areas.

There were four tasks to attend motor vehicle incidents and 16 search and rescue missions.

Originally published as LifeFlight Townsville complete record number of missions in 2024 financial year