A charter plane carrying a seriously ill Taiwan tourist took off at 4 AM Saturday from the airport in Chengdu City in southwest China, flying non-stop over the Taiwan Strait and arriving in Taipei three hours and a half later.

It was the second charter flight for medical emergencies between Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province, and Taiwan since June last year, when aviation industry authorities of the Chinese mainland and Taiwan agreed upon launching "charter flights of humanitarian purpose".

The first such flight between Chengdu and Taipei was done in April this year when a sick Taiwanese engineer in Sichuan was flown back home for surgery.

Lin Liying, the 51-year-old female Taiwan tourist this time, is a native of Taichung of Taiwan. She came to tour Sichuan together with her husband in July, according to Lin Ping with the publicity section of Sichuan Provincial Taiwan Affairs Office.

Lin Liying developed acute headache on July 29 and sought medical treatment for emergency at Huaxi Hospital. She was diagnosed as having suffered from a broke aneurysm in her brain and requested to be hospitalized two days later, with a suggested surgery to fix it immediately.

Lin was in a dangerous situation and the mortality rate of the disease Lin had been suffering was ten percent. "Within two weeks after the first haemorrhage, she may face the danger of a second one," said Deng Bing, a doctor with the hospital.

However, Lin's husband Huang Tsaiming decided to bring Lin back to Taiwan for an operation.

"It takes time for recuperation. As we don't have many relatives here in Sichuan, it will be troublesome to care for my wife after the surgery is done, so I submitted an application with the International SOS in Taipei for a charter flight to fly Lin back home to have the operation done back in Taipei," said Huang.

Huang's application was granted at Friday noon.

"Everything went smoothly because different departments here were very cooperative," said Huang. "We might come back again after my wife recovers."

(Xinhua News Agency August 4, 2007)