Air Canada flight AC33 which left on the 14^th of October operating a scheduled non-stop service between Vancouver and Sydney assisted an Australian search and rescue team this morning. A distress signal was received 273 nautical miles from Australia’s eastern seaboard of a yacht which was sinking. The Air Canada Boeing 777 aircraft was closest to that location at the time of the distress signal. It descended to approximately 3700 feet to provide an exact location of the vessel for the rescue team greatly facilitating the search and rescue effort.

 This is reminiscent of the Air New Zealand DC-10 back in 1978 which assisted a Cessna 188 that had lost its way in verifying its location over the pacific. It was later made into a movie in 1993 “Mercy Mission: the rescue of Flight 771”.