The Okinawa-based NPO MESH Support, the only private company in Japan operating a medical aircraft, has managed to collect a total of ¥36.29 million yen for its new aircraft as of May 31st. The total exceeds the goal of ¥35 million that the NPO had set to achieve by the end of May deadline.

The NPO MESH reached its goal with the help of crowd-funding efforts by ‘READYFOR’. READYFOR was the first crowd-funding service company in Japan, and is also the largest.  They provided the service of asking for donations and financial support from unspecified individuals and groups through the Internet.  This is the first time in Japan for an NPO to reach a record-high goal using crowd-funding.

The fund will be used for the purchase and maintenance of a new fixed-wing medical aircraft.  MESH Support is scheduled to buy and start trial flights of a six-seat small aircraft by the end of July.

Originally, the MESH Support intended to purchase a small aircraft to deal with emergency medical transportation from isolated islands starting Mar. 2nd this year, but was not able to come up with necessary funds, and the project was postponed while the crowd-funding effort was started.

Regarding achieving the goal MESH Support Director Masahiro Kohama commented, “It was hard to achieve the high goal in addition to the fact that this project was unprecedented. However, we were able to make it thanks to plenty of support and publicity.  We still have many things to do in order to overcome the barriers to promote our medical aircraft. However, we will try to promote our life-saving activities by utilizing the aircraft and increase our awareness activities of the aero-medical service.”

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