First Shanghai-Taiwan emergency charter flight takes off
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2006-09-25 14:55
The first-ever emergency chartered flight between Shanghai and Taipei took an
elderly Taiwan woman, stricken by a sudden brain problem, to her hometown across
the strait early Sunday morning.
A doctor attends to an 81-year-old Taiwan
woman on the first emergency chartered flight from Shanghai to Taipei
Sunday, Sep 24, 2006. [Shanghai Daily] |
By skipping regulations that call for regular flights between the mainland
and Taiwan to stop off in Hong Kong first, the trip was reduced to a little more
than two hours instead of the seven to eight hours it normally takes.
The 81-year-old woman suffered a sudden stroke in Shanghai on September 15,
doctors said.
She was later treated at Zhongshan Hospital in Shanghai, where she was in
stable but serious condition.
Her family members, who all live in Taiwan, applied to authorities late last
week for a chartered plane to fly her home quickly.
The application was approved in only 48 hours and the plane took off from
Shanghai Pudong International Airport at 2:17am yesterday.
Professionals from the international SOS rescue agency escorted the woman,
who is still paralyzed, back home on the plane.
Two similar medical emergency chartered flights across the strait have been
approved over the past two weeks, one from Guangzhou and the other from Yanbian,
in northeastern China.
In June, authorities on both sides of the Taiwan Strait announced they would
allow chartered flights between the mainland and Taiwan in the event of a
medical emergency.
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