The mission of Angel Flight West rests on a simple premise: when people need medical care, distance shouldn’t stand in their way.
To continue that mission, the nonprofit is hosting its inaugural fundraiser, Lift, from 5 to 9:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 6, at Pinnacle Aviation’s West Hangar, 8014 E. McClain Dr., Scottsdale. About 200 tickets are available.
In the hangar, guests can enjoy cocktails, dinner, a live auction and a custom car display. Pilots who donate their time, aircraft, fuel and compassion will be honored.
Guests should arrive at 5 p.m. for cocktails and appetizers; aircraft will be on display both inside and outside the hangar. Dinner begins at 6:30, followed by honoree presentations and a live auction. The night wraps with music, more cocktails, and the kind of conversations that flow easily in a hangar — pilots swapping stories, families sharing gratitude, and donors realizing the scale of what a single flight can mean.
Tickets are $350. For more information, email info@lifescottsdale.com.
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Angel Flight West was founded more than four decades ago with a handful of pilots who believed aviation could be a lifeline. Today, the organization spans 12 western states and has coordinated more than 100,000 missions. Last year, more than 4,800 flights carried patients to chemotherapy, radiation, surgeries, burn camps, specialty pediatric care, and long‑term treatment plans that would otherwise require difficult drives.
They meet patients at small regional airports — Cottonwood; Farmington, New Mexico, rural Utah and New Mexico — and fly them to specialists at Mayo Clinic, Banner Health, Phoenix Children’s and other major medical centers.
“We pilots will pick up patients, typically, at their closest airport,” said Robert Clarfield, Angel Flight West, Arizona wing leader.
“We will use our own planes. We pick them up and take them to, say, Scottsdale Airport, Deer Valley Airport or Glendale Airport — any of the local airports in the Valley.”
The benefit helps fund the infrastructure for these flights — coordination, outreach, hospital partnerships, and the occasional commercial ticket when weather or illness grounds a volunteer pilot. It also supports programs such as holiday gift flights, burn‑camp transport for children, and missions that reunite spouses during long hospital stays.
Volunteers called “Earth Angels” take patients from the aircraft to their hotel to appointments. If an “Earth Angel” is unavailable, the pilots step in.
“We take people who might be going for critical appointments,” Clarfield said.
“It could be chemotherapy or radiation. Maybe they’re going to a specialist, and they live in a rural area and need better care.
Clarfield called the missions personal and practical. Pilots often fly the same patient for months, sometimes years. He knows their caregivers, their routines, their fears. He waits in parking lots during appointments.
“I pick her up in Cottonwood, take her for her appointment, wait for her, pick her up in my car, and then drive her back to Deer Valley… and then I fly her home,” he said. The rhythm is matter‑of‑fact, but the impact is not.
Pilots are trained to keep emotional distance, but it rarely works. When a woman from Farmington, New Mexico, died after years of treatment, her cousin invited the pilot and his wife to her celebration of life. They flew themselves there.
Clarfield’s wife, Kim, an Earth Angel, has completed more than 100 ground missions. Sometimes she drives patients to the hangar. Sometimes she flies in the right seat. “You do get close,” he said. “How do you not?”