Contact: Dan Hubbard, (202) 783-9360, dhubbard@nbaa.org
Washington, DC, August 11, 2011 – At less than two years old, Virginia resident Aiden Lipscomb is fighting a courageous battle against Embryonal Rhabdomyosarcoma, a form of cancer that typically affects infants and young children. As part of a 54-week treatment plan, he has been receiving therapy at Boston’s MassGeneral Hospital for Children, where he currently is the facility’s youngest patient. For more information about Aiden Lipscomb and his courageous battle against cancer, visit http://www.rallyforaiden.com/Blog.html.
Aiden and his family are scheduled to fly back home to the Washington, D.C., area TOMORROW, Friday, Aug. 12, where he will receive three more weeks of chemotherapy. Given his weakened immune system, Aiden cannot fly via commercial airline. Instead, he’ll return home with his family on a business aircraft – a Hawker 850XP, which is scheduled to land at Signature Flight Support on Dulles International Airport in Virginia at around 4:15 p.m. ET.
The flight highlights the effectiveness of social media in coordinating the business aviation community, which consists of pilots, schedulers, dispatchers, maintenance specialists and representatives with service providers that offer support for businesses using aviation, including Fixed-Based Operators (FBOs).
Using social media, a friend of Aiden’s family, who is also a business aviation professional, worked with VA-based “Journey 4 A Cure” (which raises money for pediatric cancer research) to coordinate the donation of the airplane by NH-based C&S Wholesale Grocers to fly Aiden from theBoston hospital to his Virginia home. For more about Journey 4 A Cure, visit: http://journey4acure.org. Upon the arrival of Aiden’s flight at Dulles, Journey 4 A Cure spokeswoman Beth Collingwood will be available for comment.
Through social media, NH-based C&S Wholesale Grocers offered the airplane being used to fly Aiden from the Boston hospital to his Virginia home. Social media coordination also led Signature Flight Support (a national FBO chain) to offer support services for the flight from Signature’s Boston and Virginia locations.
Tomorrow’s flight, and others made in support of Aiden’s treatments also underscores the value of business aviation (the use of private, “general aviation” airplanes for business reasons) in providing transport for people and communities in need. For more information about companies using their airplanes for worthy causes, and organizations that coordinate flights to help those in need, please contact Dan Hubbard, spokesman, National Business Aviation Association at (202) 783-9360 or dhubbard@nbaa.org. Hubbard can also provide more information about Friday’s flight.
FLIGHT DETAILS
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Founded in 1947 and based in Washington, DC, the National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) is the leading organization for companies that rely on general aviation aircraft to help make their businesses more efficient, productive and successful. The Association represents more than 8,000 companies and provides more than 100 products and services to the business aviation community, including the NBAA Annual Meeting & Convention, the world’s largest civil aviation trade show. Learn more about NBAA at www.nbaa.org.
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