They were ready to land in Australia, at the end of a14-hour international flight, when the 270 passengersof an Air Canada flight were suddenly thrown into ahigh-seas search-and-rescue operation.
Flight AC033 diverted after pilot Andrew Robertson gota call from the Australian Maritime Safety Authority onTuesday to help search for a yachtsman who hadsailed from Sydney two weeks earlier.
"If we have the fuel, could we investigate anemergency beacon that had just gone off," came thequestion from maritime officials, Robertson told CNNCanadian affiliate CBC News.
Down below, Glenn Ey of Queensland, Australia, wasbeing tossed about in his crippled 36-foot yacht -- outof fuel and with a broken mast after a storm.
"I thought I had a very good chance of getting back toSydney without assistance," Ey said after nine daysadrift. "I couldn't see any evidence of Sydney, and I hadno idea of my exact position, and it was at that point Iset off the emergency position indicator radio beacon."
The search began as the Boeing 777, on its way fromVancouver, dropped from 37,000 feet to 4,000 feet. Robertson asked the passengers and crew to train theireyes on the choppy waters below.
"I think everyone's heart started beating a little bitfaster," said Jill Barber, a Canadian singer, who wasmaking the trip to Sydney for a concert. "They said ... we'd really appreciate it if everyone could look out theirwindows, and if anyone has any binoculars that couldhelp us identify this yacht, that would be really helpful."
It didn't take too long to find Ey as passengers andcrew scanned the waters below.
"We're doing this big sweeping right turn and almostimmediately they said, 'Oh, we see something,' " Robertson said. "We were totally ecstatic."
Total from time from activation of the emergencybeacon until he was found by the Air Canada flight: about 25 minutes.
"You know, we cheered and we applauded and I thinkwe all kind of felt a sense of pride," Barber said.
A merchant vessel helped the yacht until the NewSouth Wales water police arrived from Sydney lateWednesday, about 270 nautical miles off the coast.