In the night of 16 September 1890 the Turkish frigate Ertugrul is caught up in a typhoon and sinks off the coast of Kushimoto, Japan. Risking their own lives, local villagers are able to rescue 69 Turkish sailors. Tamura (Seiyô Uchino), a doctor living in Kushimoto, and his assistant Haru (Shioli Kutsuna) treat the injured. Although being very poor and having hardly to eat, the villagers share what little they have with strangers from a country 9,000 kilometers away. 95 years later, in 1985 during the Iran-Iraq War, Iraq announces an indiscriminate attack. More than 300 Japanese are stranded in Tehran. Harumi (Shioli Kutsuna), a teacher at a Japanese school, prevails upon the Japanese ambassador Nomura (Toshiyuki Nagashima) to ask the Turkish embassy for help. In the morning of 19 March a Turkish Airlines aircraft takes off for Tehran to evacuate the Japanese. Not only is Tehran already under heavy rocket fire. But the remaining Turks at Tehran Mehrabad Airport still need to be convinced that they won't be able to board their own country's rescue flight.