rsercely

This happened to me on a flight last week, and the airline seemed to handle it very strangely.

Trans-pacific flight.

3 hours from destination - a passenger started experiencing medical problems.
2 hours from destination - pilot announces we are diverting to "remove the body" :
1 hour from destination - we land, and it takes about 2 hours to go through the paperwork and stuff before we take off.

So, needless to say, I missed my connection and had to spend a night. I suspect a fair number of people missed, as 3 hour delay is really quite a lot.

So, why did we divert? I figure, 50/50 chance that the passenger lived in the destination city, so for the family, seems like it would have been a LOT better to continue.

Just wondering if anyone else has experienced this, knows the rules, whatever.

NWA_5479

I know that NW 19 from MSP-NRT had a person die about 30 minutes out of MSP and they continued all the way to NRT.

ancienthills

I have been present at numerous medical emergencies onboard the transpac but never a death. One was last year the person sitting next to my son. All the others they moved the person and the attending medical officer, but the last one they stayed put so I had to switch seats with my son who became upset about it all. We have never changed flight paths due to one of the emergencies. I have heard of deaths onboard where it was kept quiet and the body covered as if asleep with the plane continuing on. I guess in your case the pilot determined that travelling with the body may have caused extreme distress to other passesngers so he did what he could to minimize the psychological impact on them.

MapleLeaf

What airline?

SQ has a body storage unit in many of their planes and an NZ FA I spoke to last month said they also have a spot to put the body, if on a longhaul, but there preference was to leave them in a seat in Premier Business. Unless very, very messy why divert?

onlyairfare

As a physician, I always respond when the flight crew requests medical assistance for an inflight emergency. In many cases, the pilot has asked me if it is medically necessary to divert the flight and land short of the destination; only once in 20+ years have I actually had to recommend landing ASAP. So certainly this can be done, and is done.

On a transpac there may be no reasonable place to divert, and if the passenger is deceased, then there is no strict medical necessity. I've not been in that particular situation, but colleagues tell me that the deceased may be covered with a blanket as though sleeping, or moved to a more private location if possible (crew rest area, or empty row in back).

I can imagine there are many challenges and lots of paperwork regarding a passenger who dies enroute, especially in foreign airspace with the body being unloaded in a different country. Not to mention how other passengers might feel about the situation.

MapleLeaf

The FA on NZ that I spoke with about this indicated that the paperwork took between 2 and 3 hours to complete. In addition the crew could not go off duty until it was completed at the destination airport. She just said it was a bureaucratic nightmare.

Savage25

Only in their five 345s.

LessO2

Someone dies and people are worried about being inconvenienced by filling out paperwork? What does that say about work ethic and our society?

JakiChan

Maybe this should be a different thread, but I have always thought that doctors that respond to these things get the shaft from the airline. The airline should be generous and gracious with doctors that offer their services without compensation. I've heard they don't really do much to show their appreciation.

eyecue

Depends on where it happens. I know that if the plane continues to its destination and the pax is declared dead at the gate then it is a ground incident and the airline doesnt have to do the paperwork.

schwarm

As a physician, I've helped out a few times as well. I've never seen anything serious enough to make the decision to divert obvious. I would never, however, take responsibility if I'm not 100% certain (i.e., always). When they ask, I've replied, "That's not a decision that I have been trained to make." They then radio an MD on the ground (who's job it is) who makes the call.

LessO2

Are you sure?

I had someone seated directly behind me puke all over himself and the guy next to him. Not only was it a biohazard situation, but the FAs told me it was going to be a paperwork nightmare.

The way you say it, and the way the FAs told me (granted, it was nearly three years ago) about the vomiting....are you saying that vomit has more red tape on an aircraft than someone dying?

It doesn't make any sense.

LessO2

Nothing personal, but you're able to render medical assistance to someone, yet are not able to make a decision on her/his short-term prognosis? I know you don't have her/his full medical history, but your statement sounds awkward.

I've heard that of airlines having a doctor on the ground that makes decisions in situations like this.

J-M

Well not really. There's a lot of paperwork for the crew either way. However, if someone is declared dead in the air, then there is legal red tape that the airline must wait on (release of airplane by authorities, etc). If the person is simply "unresponsive", but are later declared dead in the jetway, hospital, etc, it can reduce the down-time of the aircraft.

It's very common. The airlines employ companies like MedLink, and they are the ones who make the divert decision. In the interest of self-preservation in the lawsuit-happy USA, I think most Doctors would recommend divert.

GUWonder

I vomited mid-way on a DL Shuttle flight to DCA. My guess is that it was acute food poisoning from AA's food service on my previous flight. The DL flight attendants knew I had vomited on the flight and said I was allowed to go to the restroom if I needed to despite the 30-minute no-standing rule for this flight heading into DCA. I cleaned up the mess myself but there was no paper work as far as I could tell that time -- and given open seating on the flight, they'd be hard pressed to fill in passenger-level details like happens with a dead body.