At the end of a 14-hour international fight, Air Canada Flight AC033 and its 270 passengers were suddenly thrown into a high-seas search-and-rescue operation. Pilot Andrew Robertson received a call from the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA), asking for help searching for a yacht that sailed from Sydney two weeks earlier. Robertson was told that an emergency beacon on the yacht had just gone off, and the AMSA was looking for any help they could get. Down below, Glenn Ey of Queensland, Australia, was being tossed about in his crippled 36-foot yacht — out of fuel and with a broken mast after a storm. Ey said he thought that after being adrift for 9 days he had a pretty good chance of getting back to Sydney without assistance, but when he discovered that he had no idea of his exact position, he thought it best to set off the rescue beacon. The search began as the Boeing 777, on its way from Vancouver, dropped from 37,000 feet to 4,000 feet and Robertson asked passengers and crew to train their eyes on the choppy waters below. He called on anyone who happened to have binoculars to scan the sea. It was a mere 25 minutes before the Air Canada flight spotted the emergency beacon on the yacht and notified a merchant vessel that then sailed to the location of the yacht. The Air Canada flight continued on to Sydney, landing about 90 minutes behind schedule. An Australian rescue plane dropped a life raft and satellite phone to Ey, and before long he was rescued. Passengers on board were impressed by the response of the captain and crew and were happy that they could help provide a good outcome for Ey.
