chtiet

Yeah, once "saw a kidney" on the gate podium at DCA that had come off a flight from LGA. It was there with the GA for about 5 minutes before a messenger came for it. It was a big box with clear markings: Human Kidney for Transplant...

SpaceBass

Richmond VA is home to http://www.unos.org/ which is the national organ clearing house (or at least a regional HQ) so I encounter this very very often. I can actually say that I look forward to seeing someone rushing past with a styrofoam box. (I hope that doesn't sound shallow- I think they are doing a great service!).

It always reminds me of when I was flying my Cessna 172 from Charlottsville VA to Lynchburg VA. I was 10 - 12 minutes from landing at LYH when Peagsus (the UVA flight copter) took off from Lynchburg General... It was on the deck at UVA before I was on the ground at LYH... Amazing prioity ATC handling (and speed).

jaymay

Thought I'd bump this with a story from a flight today - it was the 11:20 CLT-GSO mainline (only mainline out of 6 segments this weekend) and I noticed as I walked on that there was a cooler with "HUman eye tissue" on it in the coat closet.

After reading this thread I thought that we'd be pretty well expedited, but we ended up taking a usual amount of time to board and waited behind four planes for takeoff.

So, it seems that the organ thing doesn;t always guarantee the quick boarding and departure.

I kept wishing US had the channel 9 thing so I could listen in.

schistosomiasis

Interesting posts- I'm an ophthalmologist and have performed a cornea transplant myself. Corneas can be preserved for 3-7 days as mentioned previously so I'm surprised that the flight was expedited; other organs must be transported immediately.

When I was a medical student I went for a organ "harvest" with my surgery team. An ambulance took us from our hospital's emergency room to PHL where we were driven to the charter terminal (right after terminal E, this was before terminal F was completed), we jumped onto a puddlehopper, and flew 45 min somewhere into rural Pennsylvania (to this day I don't even know where). We did the surgery to remove a liver from some poor guy who got into a car accident. By the time it was all over and we flew back to PHL six hours later, it was about 5 AM and I got to carry the liver to the OR for the transplant (which had to be done the same day).

Transplants are obviously very expensive when everything is taken into account- frequently they use charter planes and helicopters, I think it makes much more sense to use commercial flights if available. (And I think it's great that the airlines do this to help out)

Now if they would just speed departure when there's an ophthalmologist on the plane....

TTT

I have been told that blood was being put onboard a NW flight a few years back. I don't remember if we got there any faster or not though. I have also been on a DL flight ATL-BDL where a coffin and remaining organs were unloaded from the baggage hold. There were a lot of shocked faces in the aisle as they watched that go down the conveyor.

Sorry, that was morbid.

Sally4th

What is that??

jophilpo

On UA, at the pilot's discretion, channel 9 can be activated, so that passengers can listen in on the radio communications.

BrokesiliaFlyer

All mainline United flights offer free audio at all times during the flight. One of those channels is "Channel 9" also called 'From the Cockpit' which is whatever the pilots are monitoring at the time (there is a 4 second delay, from what friends tell me) and it is turned on/off at the Captain's discretion.

when flying United, the first thing I do after stowing my bag is fling on the headsets & plug into Channel 9. If I don't hear the Ground Frequency (normally the ground controllers talking to other planes) then I ask the Flight Attendants if they'll beg the captain to turn it on for me. Normally a few mins later you can hear the ATC :-)

UA is the only airline in the world to offer this service fleet-wide.

Sally4th

Wow, that's rather amazing, thanks for the explanation!