Wiltshire Air Ambulance grounded

Wiltshire's Air Ambulance has been grounded after the firm which operates the chopper has gone bust.

Heli Charter holds the Air Ambulance's Air Operator Certificate, which allows the service to fly. The firm went into voluntary liquidation on Monday, meaning the Wiltshire Air Ambulance is unable to operate.

The charity says "we are aware of the difficult events taking place at Heli Charter, our Air Operator Certificate (AOC) holder. At this time we express our sympathies with the staff of Heli Charter who have been affected."

In a separate incident on Wednesday 2 January, the Wiltshire Air Ambulance duty pilot was conducting the routine daily power assurance checks for the engines when the helicopter systems did not perform as expected. As a result the decision was made to ground the aircraft until the manufacturer’s support engineer could take a look.

The support engineer was onsite the following day and now the Air Ambulance crew will wait for the results of the engineer's data analysis before the helicopter flies again.

What happens now?

Wiltshire Air Ambulance says it has a contingency plan, which has already begun. The charity will continue to respond to medical emergencies using two rapid response vehicles, which carry the same specialist medical equipment that is on-board the helicopter. Also neighbouring air ambulances will support Wiltshire in case there are incidents requiring a helicopter.

In a statement the charity says: