300 Taxi cabs light up an airstrip for an emergency flight

In a feel good aviation story, both Yahoo! News and the BBC picked up a story from the Peruvian Times earlier in the week about how a fleet of hundreds of taxis came to the rescue to light up a remote airstrip in Contamana, Peru, in order for a rescue plane to make an emergency takeoff with three sick residents.

Apparently, the only other access route from Contamana to the nearest hospital would be an 18-hour boat ride, but the town’s airstrip had no lighting for night flights. So a local radio station put out a call for help and it was answered within thirty minutes by the town’s cab drivers.

Sadly, one of the plane’s passengers later died of complications from leptospirosis, a tropical disease often contracted from drinking contaminated water. However, the mother and her newborn baby who were also evacuated are expected to make a full recovery.