LifeFlight Eagle plans to relocate its Trenton base to Chillicothe.

Matt Daughtery, Dir. of Business Development for LifeFlight said the move is due to several issues including a flood at the Trenton Airport in 2014 which forced crews out of the facility for around 10 weeks. Daughtery said there is no way to prevent that from taking place again. Also, fog is often a concern at the current location.

“It’s very prone to fog and as a result we are unable to respond to some patient transports because of very localized fog there when it’s perfect flying conditions a mile or so away at Wright Memorial Hospital,” Daughtery said. “Moving to the Chillicothe Airport provides us with an opportunity to avoid those potential issues and we will be able to respond to more requests for emergency transport.”

LifeFlight has signed a letter of intent with the City of Chillicothe. The next step is to finalize a lease agreement before breaking ground on a new hanger and crew quarters that the City of Chillicothe will build at the airport.

“We’ll probably be there sometime in the fall but we don’t have a specific time set yet,” Daughtery said.

The move from Trenton to Chillicothe will take about eight additional minutes for the aircraft to respond from the Airport to Wright Memorial Hospital.

“It takes a long time when you’re driving between the two but when you’re flying 140 miles an hour in a straight line it doesn’t take very long to get between there,” Daughtery said. “We just want to reassure the community in Trenton and Grundy County and the surrounding area that we’re not abandoning the community by any stretch of the imagination. We’re really trying to position our program in a place that we can be most responsive in emergency requests.”

LifeFlight has had a base in Trenton since 2005. It also has bases in Odessa, Clinton and Harrisonville as well as an additional helicopter dedicated to the Children’s Mercy Critical Care Transport Team in Kansas City.