Personnel of the 59th Medical Wing from Lackland AFB, Tex., airlifted seven-year-old Meaghan Ababa from Hawaii to Los Angeles in what her doctors describe as a “miracle” flight. The girl had been placed on an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation machine to aid her failing heart and lungs, but the doctors in Hawaii couldn’t perform a heart transplant should it be needed. Moving a patient on an ECMO machine is tricky, so the doctors enlisted the help of a specialized team at USAF’s Wilford Hall Medical Center to undertake the eight-hour flight aboard a C-17.
Depot-level maintenance took longer than expected for nearly three-quarters of Air Force aircraft from fiscal 2019-2024, according to a new report, as unplanned repairs rise across the aging fleet. The report, from the Government Accountability Office, also found that the extent of the delays has been masked because officials often revise their target timelines after unplanned work occurs.