Tag:emergency=air_rescue_service

Use emergency=air_rescue_service to show the buildings and base areas of those groups that use aircraft, either fixed-wing or helicopters, for either aerial Search and Rescue, or Aeromedical Evacuation purposes.

These groups may be operated by either Government, Commercial or Civil organisations. This tag does not distinguish between them.

Some examples of these groups include the Westpac Life Saver Rescue Helicopter Service (Australia), Bristow Helicopters (UK), Rega (Switzerland), DRF Luftrettung (Germany), Royal Flying Doctor Service (Australia) and many others.

This tag should only be used for the bases and operating areas that house the emergency units. For helicopter landing-pads only e.g. at hospitals, use aeroway=helipad; or for those locations where a helicopter can land in an emergency situation, use emergency=landing_site

This tag may be further broken down into:

• air_rescue_service=search_and_rescue, and
• air_rescue_service=aeromedical

"Search and rescue" will be used to refer to those units, usually equipped with helicopters, that carry out aerial searches, and are also equipped to then rescue people in distress, usually by use of a winch

"Aeromedical" will be used to refer to those units, equipped with helicopters and/or fixed-wing aircraft, which are used to transport medical cases and/or injured casualties to a place offering medical assistance. These units are not usually equipped to carry out actual rescues, only provide transport services

In some cases, both sub-types will operate from the same base area.

How to Map

For buildings / areas that operate as a air-rescue station, draw an area around either the individual building, or the entire area, including any related items such as dedicated aeroway aprons or helipads, and tag it as emergency=air_rescue_service.

If a single building is shared by multiple users, add a node inside the mapped building and tag it as emergency=air_rescue_service.

This tag should only be used for the bases and operating areas that house the emergency units. For helicopter landing-pads only e.g. at hospitals, use aeroway=helipad, or for those locations where a helicopter can land in an emergency situation, use emergency=landing_site.

This tag can also be added to such facilities as fire-stations and Police units, as well as Military units, that also perform aerial search and rescue services.

Tags used in combination

• name=* - the common name of the feature e.g. RFDS Longreach, Westpac Carrara etc
• operator=* - e.g. Royal Flying Doctor Service, Westpac Lifesaver Rescue Helicopter Service etc (spelt in full in local language)
• operator:wikidata=* - the Wikidata ID code for the Operator
• access=private - the base areas will usually not be open to the general public so access should be tagged as private
• air_rescue_service=search_and_rescue - for units that carry out aerial searches, and are also rescues
• air_rescue_service=aeromedical - for units that transport medical cases and/or injured casualties to medical assistance

Other possible tags to include

• aeroway=helipad - where the unit has it's own dedicated helipad
• icao=* - where the unit has it's own ICAO code e.g. YCAX
  

Optional

• seamark:type=rescue_station - denotes a Rescue Station and is intended to render in various nautical charts
• seamark:rescue_station:category=aircraft - denotes a Rescue Station equipped with Search and Rescue aircraft

Possible Rendering

This tag could possibly render with the same pink background / brown icon colour scheme as currently used for Police & Fire Stations, together with an icon of a helicopter?

Examples

Examples	Tagging	Images
A Search and Rescue helicopter base	Map area of building as: emergency=air_rescue_service + air_rescue_service=search_and_rescue
An Aeromedical Rescue base	Tag as node: emergency=air_rescue_service + air_rescue_service=aeromedical