An opportunity

 It has been announced that the emergency helicopter landing pad will be relocated from the current dangerous location at the Point Pleasant Park Look-off. The current space is leased and the lease will not be renewed.This is an opportunity for the Halifax Regional Municipality and the Port of Halifax to co-ordinate on correcting a couple of issues.

A Patient Transfer Unit (ambulance) on stand-by at the heli-pad in case the LifeFlight helo has to abort its landing at one of the hospitals.The helipad is on the edge of Point Pleasant Park, and obstructs the entrance to the Public Walkway. The heli-pad is also very close to pedestrians.

First is to open up a proper access to the Public Walkway / Breakwater (see previous post) instead of the current hidden route, which has to work around the landing pad. Not only is this access point "obscure" it is hard to tell if the gate is open or closed.With the helipad gone the extreme danger to the public will also be removed. (How many helicopter landing points allow spectators within 25 feet of rotating helicopter blades - separated only be a chain link fence?)

Second is to install an interpretive location for the Port itself and the Southend Container Terminal. Instead of the strange patch of grass, a bench and a couple of picnic tables adjacent to the landing pad (which are apparently parts of Point Pleasant Park) I hope some design effort will go into re-thinking the area to make it more appealing, easier of access and - dare I hope - more informative? As I stated in my previous post the Port needs better maintenance on the Public Walkway too and access for small machines is required.

The small patch of "Park" is detached from the main park and the entrace to the Public Walkway (far right) is obscure.

 

These 2015 and 2016 photos show LifeFlight Sikorsky type S-76A, C-GIMN at the heli-pad, with members of the public in close attendance. (This aircraft, built in 1980, has since been retired and donated to the Nova Scotia Community College Aviation Institute program.)

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The Point Pleasant Park helicopter landing pad is a back-up to the roof-top helicopter landing pads on the IWK Health Centre (women's and children's hospital including trauma, neo-natal and and maternity services) and the Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Centre, which includes acute care and emergency services. The back-up pad is used when the regular structures are out of service. Operators LifeFlight, also have fixed wing aircraft that operate out of regular airports.

LifeFlight may transer patients from within Nova Scotia, but also from New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island to the regional advanced care facilities in Halifax. A new permanent back-up location is being sought for helicopter landings, but for now the operation will be re-located to the Canadian military facility Windsor Park in the north-west end of the Halifax peninsula. That is far safer if somewhat farther from the hospitals.

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Although rare, Canadian military Search and Rescue helicopters have landed at the Point Pleasant Park location there too. They would be too large to land on either of the hospital roof top pads. (They may also use Windsor Park, which houses the Rescue Coordination Centre for the region.)

Since 2018 LifeFlight has operated two Sikorsky S-76C type helicopters. C-FLFT, dating from 2005 is one of them:

For more informaiton on LifeFlight, see the Wikipedia entry at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LifeFlight_(Nova_Scotia)

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