The first-ever emergency chartered flight between Shanghai and Taipei took an elderly Taiwanese woman, stricken by a sudden brain problem, to her hometown across the strait early yesterday morning.

By skipping regulations that call for regular flights between the mainland and Taiwan to stop off in Hong Kong first, the trip was reduced to a little more than two hours instead of the seven to eight hours it normally takes.

The 81-year-old woman suffered a sudden stroke in Shanghai on September 15, doctors said.

She was later treated at Zhongshan Hospital in Shanghai, where she was in stable but serious condition.

Her family members, who all live in Taiwan, applied to authorities late last week for a chartered plane to fly her home quickly.

The application was approved in only 48 hours and the plane took off from Shanghai Pudong International Airport at 2:17am yesterday.

Professionals from the international SOS rescue agency escorted the woman, who is still paralyzed, back home on the plane.

Two similar medical emergency chartered flights across the strait have been approved over the past two weeks, one from Guangzhou and the other from Yanbian, in northeastern China.

In June, authorities on both sides of the Taiwan Strait announced they would allow chartered flights between the mainland and Taiwan in the event of a medical emergency.

Photograph: A doctor attends to an 81-year-old Taiwanese woman on the first emergency chartered flight from Shanghai to Taipei yesterday.