An Air Canada Boeing 777 enroute from Vancouver to Sydney was requested from Australian Maritime Safety Authority to divert and look for a yacht in distress. The aircraft descended from cruise altitude to 3500' and the flight crew borrowed some binoculars from the passengers to search for the yacht, and report the situation back to Australian Authorities.

 

Pretty cool....Here is a news feed:

 

http://www.cbc.ca/ne...cue-sailor.html

Very cool!

Awesome

 

Glad all turned out as well. I can only imagine the announcement the captain made to the passengers after He accepted.

 

"Uh ya, this is your Captaib speaking, we are about to drop down and skim over the water for a little bit and look for a boat. Yell out to the nearest attendant if you see one" lol

"Uh ya, this is your Captaib speaking, we are about to drop down and skim over the water for a little bit and look for a boat. Yell out to the nearest attendant if you see one" lol

 

:LMAO:

 

Yea I guess it would have been a rather interactive search and rescue with 288 set of eyes on board that aircraft to look for a boat.

 

Cheers

I would love to know the aircraft configuration for that alt and load.

Thanks for the post. Great story...shared on fb. :Peace:

Me fears Ryanair will now invent an observer fee. Seriously, great post, Matthew.

A number of years ago a small single engine acrft enroute from the U.S. got lost and a Air New Zealand flight brought him in. That story was real amazing how the old vetern pilot using nav skills from scout days was able to find this little plane.

Thank you very much! That's indeed an interesting story.

 

Flo

A number of years ago a small single engine acrft enroute from the U.S. got lost and a Air New Zealand flight brought him in. That story was real amazing how the old vetern pilot using nav skills from scout days was able to find this little plane.

 

I wonder if he had a Radio Direction Finder equipment to be able to locate. Not sure if ANZ has that equipment or not. If not then situation awareness is key

I wonder if he had a Radio Direction Finder equipment to be able to locate. Not sure if ANZ has that equipment or not. If not then situation awareness is key

It was a B767-200. piloted by the late Captain Gordon Vette ( of Impact Erebus fame). In the movie "Mercy Mission", he used dead reckoning basicly to find the American pilot on a delivery flight in an Ag plane, which was enroute KSFO to YBBN.

 

To find the plane and guide it to saftey was quite a feat, as you can imagine it was like trying to find a needle in a million haystacks in the vast Pacific ocean. he maniged to guide the Ag plane to Auckland.

You sure? I thought it was a DC10?

The Erebus plane was a DC10, November 1979. The Pacific rescue occured about the mid 80's. (Dc10's had been replaced with 747-219's by then). The flight was from Nadi to Auck, and in the mid 80's, 7672's were the common equipment on that route. Gordon Vette spent the remainder of his life trying to clear the Flight crew of the ill fated DC10 who will blamed for the accident. That is where the Erebus connection is. Gordon Vette was a great aviator,whom I greatly admire, and was recognised around the world in his studies in crew resource managment.

 

Edit: Will, I mentioned in my previous post "Impact Erebus", I was reffering to the book written by Gordon Vette, which is, for those who have an investigative mind, a great read. Sorry for any confusion.

This is incredible! Pretty cool to be a passenger on that flight. The dude in the yacht probably thought he was hallucinating when he saw the T7 flying super low in the middle of the ocean. Really cool.

 

The Erebus plane was a DC10, November 1979. The Pacific rescue occured about the mid 80's. (Dc10's had been replaced with 747-219's by then). The flight was from Nadi to Auck, and in the mid 80's, 7672's were the common equipment on that route. Gordon Vette spent the remainder of his life trying to clear the Flight crew of the ill fated DC10 who will blamed for the accident. That is where the Erebus connection is. Gordon Vette was a great aviator,whom I greatly admire, and was recognised around the world in his studies in crew resource managment.

 

Edit: Will, I mentioned in my previous post "Impact Erebus", I was reffering to the book written by Gordon Vette, which is, for those who have an investigative mind, a great read. Sorry for any confusion.

 

Ah! Ok, thank you for the information, i got confused.

 

Terrific story!