All three plane passengers survived after the 300 or so taxi drivers – their motorcycles fashioned into like old-style Thai tuk-tuks – heeded a call from a local radio station to race to the small airstrip in Contamana, in one of Peru’s poorest regions.
The airstrip is not equipped for night flights because it has no runway lighting, and the local hospital has no emergency equipment.
The patients were a woman and her newborn, both with serious problems after delivery, and a man with a tropical disease.
“We have always been people with a heart,” said Adolfo Lobo, the radio presenter who put out the call for help.