Australian authorities are thanking Air Canada for its role in helping locate a yacht in distress about 435 kilometres east of Sydney, Australia.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority asked two airliners passing through the area to help confirm the man's whereabouts.

"The location of the beacon was within a flight path, so we needed to assess the situation and the Boeing 777 was the closest asset available to us," Jo Meehan of the AMSA told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.

"The Air Canada plane was the only aircraft in the vicinity, so the pilot announced they were obligated to search for the boat. The Air Canada jet flew RIGHT over the ocean, dipping its wings from side to side and asking all the passengers to look for the boat with any binoculars they might have with them," Lawrence wrote of his wife's experience.

Following the flights' confirmations of the boat's location, a police vessel was dispatched to the drifting, low-on-fuel yacht.

"It's not common, but that's not because we try to avoid doing it," an AMSA spokeswoman she told the Australian Associated Press of recruiting commercial aircraft to assist in a search-and-rescue effort. "It's because the nature of the incidents that we have aren't necessarily so remote that we can only rely on the commercial airlines."

"We're really pleased we could help," Air Canada spokesman Peter Fitxpatrick told the Globe and Mail.

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The yachtsman is in good spirits, the AMSA spokeswoman reassured reporters.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/dailybrew/air-canada-crew-helps-locate-yacht-distress-off-162649530.html