DISASTER MEDICINE No. 2 •2026

doi: 10.33266/2070-1004-2026-2

Review article

Organizational and Legal Aspects of First Aid on Board a Civil Aircraft

Zakurdaeva A.Y. 1,2, Dezhurnyy L.I. 2,3,4, Birkun A.A. 5,6, Solonin A.P. 2,7

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1 Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University, Moscow, Russian Federation

2 Russian Society of First Aid, Moscow, Russian Federation

3 Federal Research Institute for Health Organization and Informatics of Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation, Moscow, Russian Federation

4 Russian Medical Academy of Continuous Professional Education” of the Ministry of Healthcare of the Russian Federation, Moscow, Russian Federation

5 Medical Institute named after S.I.Georgievskiy of V.I.Vernadskiy Crimean Federal University, Simferopol, Russian Federation

6 Crimean Republican Center for Disaster Medicine and Emergency Medical Services, Simferopol, Russian Federation

7 Kamchatka Territorial Center for Disaster Medicine, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy, Russian Federation

UDC 614.88:614.256:613.693

P. 65-74

 

Summary. The purpose of the study is to analyze the legal framework for organizing first aid on board a civil aircraft, statistics of health conditions and disorders that develop during flights, as well as scientific publications and international recommendations related to first aid, in order to make proposals for the development of a First Aid (FA) Procedure on a civil aircraft.
Materials and methods of research. Research materials – data on the prevalence of health-related conditions arising during air travel and the organization of first aid on board an aircraft, contained in the works of Russian and foreign scientists; international guidelines for first aid; international guidelines and recommendations on aviation medicine and air travel safety; regulatory legal and advisory acts of the Russian Federation, as well as scientific publications related to the topic of research.
Research methods – in September-November 2025, using the keywords “air transportation”, “aviation”, “aviation”, “flight attendant”, “aircraft”, “passenger”, “flight”, “plane”, “aviation”, “aircraft”, “in-flight” in combination with the phrases “medical aid”, “first aid”, “first aid”, a search was conducted for scientific publications in the databases PubMed, Google Scholar, eLibrary.ru, as well as using the Google search engine, search for: international recommendations for first aid; documents on aviation medicine; recommendations related to first aid during air travel. The search for regulatory legal and advisory acts of the Russian Federation was carried out using the term “first aid” in the legal reference systems Garant and ConsultantPlus. When conducting the research, universal methods of cognition, empirical and theoretical scientific methods were used, including methods of description, comparison, generalization, analysis and synthesis.
Research results and their analysis. A review was carried out and analyzed regulatory legal acts, scientific publications and international recommendations on first aid issues in order to make proposals for the development of the Procedure for providing first aid on board civil aircraft. An approximate list of conditions or groups of conditions requiring the provision of FA on board a civil aircraft has been generated.
Based on the results of the study, proposals were made for the development of a Procedure for the provision of FA on board a civil aircraft.

Key words: air travel, civil aircraft, conditions, crew members, diseases, first aid, passengers, persons with medical education, remote consultation

For citation: Zakurdaeva A.Y., Dezhurnyy L.I., Birkun A.A., Solonin A.P. Organizational and Legal Aspects of First Aid on Board a Civil Aircraft. Meditsina Katastrof = Disaster Medicine. 2026;2:65-74 (In Russ.). doi:10.33266/2070-1004-2026-2-65-74

 

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The material was received 24.11.25; the article after peer review procedure 21.04.26; the Editorial Board accepted the article for publication 16.06.26
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