Flight held at Shanghai for heart transplant mercy dash

A packed passenger plane was held at Shanghai Pudong Airport for more than an hour, waiting for a heart urgently needed by a transplant patient in central China's Hubei Province, reports thepaper.cn.

China Eastern Airlines received a call from a doctor Guo at around 18:00 on Wednesday requesting help to get the organ from a donor in Hangzhou to the recipient in Wuhan

Transplant hearts need to be used within eight hours, and as there was no direct flight between the two cities at the time, Guo hoped to take a flight from Shanghai instead, a few hour's drive away.

China Eastern Airlines agreed to wait for Guo and coordinated other departments to facilitate a green channel for him and the life-saving heart.

Doctor Guo left Hangzhou at 21:36 on Wednesday, and then drove two hours to Shanghai. Flight MU2520, which had been due to leave at 22:45, finally took off just after midnight. Guo reached the hospital in Wuhan at around 02:00 on Thursday morning. It's understood the transplant surgery proved a success.

Despite being delayed by 80 minutes, the 147 passengers and crew members on board expressed their support for the doctor, saying the wait was worth it to save a life.