Inside the Gulfstream III Air Ambulance Collecting American Citizens for COVID-19 Treatment

The American-made Gulfstream III is the workhorse of private jets. This modern Pegasus has been used for some of the toughest jobs out there – from NASA missions to getting critical medical care for Ebola patients. Now it’s bringing home Americans infected with COVID-19 who need lifesaving treatment. Let’s take a look inside this extraordinary airplane.

The sleek lines of the Gulfstream III look like any other private jet, but the battleship gray paint job is the first clue that this plane has been designed for something other than business flights.

This jet has been configured with a large cargo door and an Airborne Biomedical Containment System, turning it into a specialized air ambulance that can fly people infected with highly contagious diseases to hospitals where they can receive critical medical intervention.

Owned by a private company, the U.S. government has again relied on charter flights aboard the modified Gulfstream jet, to get sick and stranded Americans the medical care they need while also keeping crew and frontline medical staff safe during transportation.

Ebola Gray

The plane was built in 1982 and used by the Royal Danish Air Force for maritime missions and even carried Danish Queen Margrethe II on several occasions before being bought and used in private jet charter service.

In 2014, the airplane was deployed during the Ebola virus epidemic in Liberia and flew a total of 12 missions from Africa to the U.S. and Europe. Known as the ‘Ebola plane’ or ‘Ebola Gray’, the Gulfstream jet transported over 40 patients who had been either infected or exposed to the deadly disease. Once the Ebola outbreak was contained, the remaining onboard isolation and containment chambers were rolled into a storeroom and the plane was deployed on other missions. This included the evacuation of dignitaries to the U.S. and flying home American student Otto Warmbier who was imprisoned and allegedly tortured in North Korea.

The COVID-19 plane

Now the containment chambers are once again out of storage and the ‘Ebola Gray’ has become the ‘COVID-19 plane’, transporting Americans home who have tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

While any mission to fly highly contagious passengers to places of treatment is challenging enough, the Gulfstream jet was put through its paces on one of its first COVID-19 missions. The aim was to land at Paro Airport in Bhutan, which shares borders with India and China, to airlift an elderly and critically ill patient to safety.

Imagine having to land and take off from one of the most dangerous airports in the world with a desperately sick and dangerously contagious patient onboard. The short runway at Paro Airport tests the approach of even the best aircraft and pilots – located in a deep valley near a river and surrounded by 18,000ft mountain peaks a mile and a half above sea level. The modified Gulfstream III did not disappoint. The 76-year-old American tourist was evacuated to the U.S. on March 13 and made a full recovery.

Inside the Gulfstream III COVID-19 airplane

The idea for an isolation chamber – the official name is Aeromedical Biological Containment System (ABCS) – was first floated by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in 2007. This chamber would be the safest way to fly highly contagious patients who had Avian Flu and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), back to the U.S. in the event of global outbreaks.

An ABCS unit – a collaboration between the CDC and Department of Defense engineers – has a frame of metal tubing that can be placed inside the jet’s fuselage. The frame is covered by a disposable plastic zippered cocoon that looks like a very thick shower curtain and can accommodate only one patient at a time.

Each item used inside this cocoon is disposable, from a stretcher and bucket toilet to the leads for the health monitors that can be operated from outside of the containment unit. Inside the COVID-19 plane, medical personnel enter an air-locked sterile area where they put on personal protection equipment guided by a checklist and an advisor who stays outside the sterile area.

To make sure that any virus in the air is pulled back into the patient cocoon, an air pump creates a negative air pressure gradient that moves air from the main aircraft cabin, through the sterile area, and back to the cocoon.

The air in a pressurized aircraft is usually drawn in from the engines and enters the cabin through a series of vents. Then to sustain air pressure, some of this air leaves the cabin via a baffled outflow valve near the cockpit. Not so in the COVID-19 Gulfstream jet. The outflow valve located near the Gulfstream III cockpit has been sealed and placed instead in an empty luggage compartment at the rear of the plane. This allows air to flow backward along the pressure gradient, through CDC-designed HEPA filters before it’s expelled harmlessly into the sky.

Thanks to the Royal Danish Air Force, loading and disembarking have been made as efficient as possible by the modified cargo door measuring 7ft wide, cut into the side of the airplane. A hush kit has been fitted to quieten the roar of the powerful engines.

Gulfstream III specs and performance

The Gulfstream III is designed as an all-weather, long-range, high-speed business jet. Manufacturer Gulfstream Aerospace developed the aircraft as an improved variant of its successful Grumman Gulfstream II (G-1159).

They started with a redesign of the wing that would incorporate NASA supercritical airfoil sections and winglets in the new design. But optimization tests – that looked at things like weight, drag, fuel volume, cost, and performance – showed they could achieve almost as much benefit by simply modifying the box structure and trailing edge surfaces of the existing wing design. Compared to the G-1159, the new aircraft wing has an increased span of 6ft and 5ft winglets have been added.

The fuselage gained an additional 2ft in length aft of the main door, bringing its total measurement to 77ft 10in – seen more often in regional commuter jets than ocean-hopping business jets. The plane is 83ft 1in long and 24ft 4.5in high – comfortably accommodating up to three crew and 19 passengers in standard seating.

The jet has a maximum takeoff weight of 69,700lbs. Two Rolls-Royce Spey RB.163 Mk 511-8 turbofan engines each produce an impressive 11,400lb of thrust, allowing the heavy jet to reach a maximum speed of 577mph or 509mph at cruise speed. A range of 3,650nm puts London or Zurich within easy reach of New York.

The aircraft’s radome has been extended and the jet fitted with a new curved windshield. Modifications to the Gulfstream III cockpit include the autopilot, flight instruments, and engine instruments.

Between 1980 when the aircraft received its type certification from the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) and by the time the last jet of its kind was built in 1986, a total of 202 aircraft had been built.

Interestingly, special mission variants of the GIII have been created. One of these has been fitted by NASA with a centerline pylon that allows it to carry the Airborne Microwave Observatory of Subcanopy and Subsurface (AirMOSS) pod to collect engineering and ecosystem data for scientific purposes.

Prices for a used GIII range from around $700,000 to $1,595,000.

ACS private jet charter flights – first in and out of disaster areas

ACS flew more than 4,500 passengers out of the violence that erupted in Libya in 2011. It was the largest and most complex evacuation operation we had ever faced. Our staff member in Tripoli helped to manage ground operations and the logistics of chartering passengers of many different nationalities including Turkish, British, American, Portuguese, Spanish, Vietnamese, Chinese, and Thai. Thanks to our global network, ACS planes were the first charters out of the country, flying thousands of people to safety.

Since 1990, we have been part of practically every global relief operation from floods and tsunamis, to political unrest. Speak to our charter experts to find out how we can deliver swift, time-sensitive private jet charters when you need them most. Private passenger and cargo charters often mean the difference between life and death in times of outbreak and disaster. Whether you’re looking to transport goods, personnel or join a global relief effort, make sure ACS is your first call.