Deck landing over winch hoist. Polish naval helicopter evacuates 19-month-old from ferry Stena Estelle

Shortly before 11:00, a W-3 WARM crew from the Polish Naval Aviation Brigade was scrambled to the ferry Stena Estelle. A 19-month-old child on board needed urgent medical help. Within roughly a quarter of an hour of pick-up, the patient was in hospital in Wejherowo, near Gdańsk.

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31 july 2026   |   00:38   |   Source: Gazeta Morska   |   Prepared by: Michał Iwański   |   Print

fot. załoga W-3WARM

Why the crew put the aircraft on the deck

The defining call of the mission was how the patient came off the ship. Instead of the standard hover and winch extraction, the aircraft commander chose to land on the ferry's deck. The decision followed a rapid assessment of three variables at once: weather, fuel state and the child's condition. The child and his mother were treated on board the ferry and then taken into the helicopter.

For rescue crews, that distinction matters. Winching is the most demanding phase of any evacuation from a vessel under way, and with a patient of this age moved together with a parent, the risk profile rises on both ends of the cable. A deck landing removes that phase altogether and compresses the timeline. It also depends on conditions the commander has minutes to judge: a vessel with usable deck space, relative wind, deck movement and obstructions around the touchdown point.

The choice of platform carries its own logic. Large ferries on Baltic routes carry several hundred passengers with deliberately basic onboard medical provision. When a paediatric emergency develops mid-passage, the alternative to a helicopter is completing the voyage to port, a difference measured in hours rather than minutes.

A first operational mission for a new rescue crewman

The sortie had a second significance for the brigade. It was the first real-world rescue flight for a newly qualified rescue crewman. In rescue aviation, that debut closes a long training cycle, and drawing a paediatric patient on the first live task is not among the gentler introductions. The brigade described his conduct as composed and professional.

Fifteen medical sorties so far this year

The Stena Estelle evacuation sits within a running tally the brigade maintains. Since the start of 2026, Polish naval aviators have flown 15 medical missions over the Baltic. The unit's cumulative total stands at 841 rescue missions.

Fifteen sorties in under seven months averages out at more than two a month. Each represents a case in which onboard care or continuing to port stopped being sufficient.

Rescue flying is a standing task for the Naval Aviation Brigade. The W-3 WARM, the search and rescue variant of the PZL W-3 Sokół, stands duty in the Polish SAR region and covers both survivor recovery and medical evacuation from vessels. What determines the outcome is rarely the flight alone but the full chain: alert, extraction and handover to a hospital able to take the case.

The brigade did not comment on the child's condition following admission in Wejherowo.

Context for operators

Medical evacuation from passenger ferries is a recurring planning assumption for Baltic operators rather than an exceptional event. Two practical points follow from this mission. First, deck geometry is an operational asset: vessels with clear, certified or at least usable landing areas give rescue commanders an option that materially shortens the sequence. Second, the value of the flight is capped by what happens after it, which makes the standing arrangements between naval aviation and shoreside emergency medicine as important as aircraft availability.

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