Military helicopters despatched to Moray to aid the response to the Covid-19 pandemic across Scotland have been stood down.
Three Puma aircraft have been based at Kinloss Barracks for three months to transport infectious patients from remote locations to hospital.
Yesterday the helicopters returned to Oxfordshire, but will remain ready to return to the north if required again.
Pauline Howie, chief executive of the Scottish Ambulance Service, said: “We trained regularly together to establish the best ways of moving adult-sized incubators, called epishuttles, by air.
“During this time the Kinloss Pumas transported one critically ill patient from Arran to the mainland, while other fixed-wing RAF transport aircraft have moved seriously ill patients from Orkney and Shetland to Aberdeen.”
While in Scotland, the personnel have also been using mountain ranges and other rural locations to train ahead of future deployments to Afghanistan.
Major General David Eastman said: “The deployment of the RAF Puma Task Force shows how quickly we have been able to respond to requests for support from our colleagues in the emergency services across the UK throughout the battle against the coronavirus.
“Our crews have been on 24-hour call and successfully evacuated patients from some of the most remote areas.”
