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Car Headlights Guide Medevac Plane on Runway in Touching Display of Solidarity

This has been a bad year all around, whichever way you look at it. In a mass of depressing news and conflicting information, here is the feel-good story of the day of how a community rallied to save a girl’s life – using their cars’ headlights.
Cars light up the runway so medevac plane can land safely in Alaska 1 photo
Photo: Ida Nelson for CNN
It happened last week in the small and isolated community of Igiugig in Alaska, head tribal clerk Ida Nelson explains for CNN. She was taking a steam bath when she heard the sound of a plane coming in low and she immediately knew that something was wrong: in rural Alaska, planes don’t fly that low in the middle of the night.

The plane was a medevac aircraft that had been called in to take a small car to hospital in Anchorage. It was flying low because the pilot couldn’t turn on the runway lights, as neither could the operator on the ground. Without lights to show the runway, the plane couldn’t land safely.

Nelson jumped on her ATV and rushed to the airstrip, where she learned all this from the operator. The two made 32 calls to locals, asking them to drive in and offer assistance. It took some organizing, but the locals who responded were able to recreate the runway lighting by using their cars’ headlights. There were 20 vehicles at the scene and they were positioned on the same side of the runway, shining the lights on it.

The plane landed safely, the girl was carried on board, and it took off to Anchorage. During the entire time, the drivers had been instructed not to move and not to turn off the lights. The little girl made it to the hospital in stable condition, so it could be that the locals’ quick thinking and incredible display of solidarity saved her life.

“It's an ordinary thing to happen here in such a small community,” Nelson says. “And what I'm finding out is that it's extraordinary to other people – it's kind of a normal deal.”

Still, hope in humanity (temporarily) restored.
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About the author: Elena Gorgan
Elena Gorgan profile photo

Elena has been writing for a living since 2006 and, as a journalist, she has put her double major in English and Spanish to good use. She covers automotive and mobility topics like cars and bicycles, and she always knows the shows worth watching on Netflix and friends.
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