Canadian helicopter operator Helijet International has donated a Sikorsky S-76A equipped for emergency medical service operations to Ukraine. The helicopter is now being reassembled and tested in the country before being deployed to airlift patients needing urgent treatment in hospitals in the war-torn country.

The Vancouver-based company has trained Ukrainian technicians to maintain and support the S-76A. Helijet president and CEO Danny Sitnam is in the country this week to oversee the delivery and entry-into-service process for an aircraft that Helijet has been using for patient transportation on behalf of British Columbia’s health ministry.

Under the terms of the donation, the aircraft is to be used for noncommercial, humanitarian evacuation missions. It was arranged by a consortium of nongovernmental organizations working in Canada and Ukraine under the auspices of Maple Hope Foundation and the Ukrainian World Congress.

“Once you are here, what the war has done to the Ukrainian people and their villages and cities suddenly becomes real in a way that just can’t be fully conveyed in the reports we see on the news,” Sitnam commented. “Having helped with various Ukrainian relief efforts in Canada since the Russian invasion began here three years ago, I knew gifting one of the now-surplus aircraft for use over here would make a positive impact.”