How's this for community effort. An Air Canada flight from Vancouver to Sydney responded to an emergency request from the Australian Maritime Safety Authority to divert to the area where a yacht was in distress, and ended up saving the life of sailor in question. Glenn Ey, who has stranded in the Tasman Sea for 16 hours after a storm capsized his yacht and tore off the mast, was spotted by passengers and crew on the flight after the plane dropped to 3,700 feet in efforts to help rescue him, which has been likened to "finding a needle in a haystack" by aviation experts.
Even though the flight was delayed by 90 minutes in the search effort, the good karma gained by all will definitely outweigh any bad consequences. No one wants to be the passenger on board who says no to a rescue effort and the chance to be a hero, even if it does mean you miss your connecting flight. Thanks to the planes diversion, Ey was rescued and even managed to walk away from the ordeal relatively unharmed. All in a days work for Air Canada, eh?
