Classic British Flight Sim

Not something that we would want to happen when flying as a passenger especially first class but came across this story from 18 March 2008 on board a BA flight.

Very difficult situation to deal with but after reading the account and of the supposed remarks of the crew as well as BA to the complainant. even though this is (thankfully) a rare occurrence, I would have thought it would have been better (but not for the relative) had the body been moved to one of the toilets or even (tongue in cheek) the jump seat on the flight deck!!

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/u ... 530572.ece

Nigel.

All of the 747s I've ever been on (mainly to fuel them) have lockers below decks for body storage just to prevent this kind of occurance. Why did they not use it is my question. In my 2 years at Denver, we had both a Continental 777 and Virgin Atlantic 747 divert in as well due to deaths aboard and in both cases, the bodies were removed from the lower deck lockers (easy to know because they put the gurney on one of the K-Lifts (the things that handle the cargo containers) and they went into the lower aft cargo area to retrieve the body.

If I had paid the very high fee to sit in first class I certainly don't want to be with 'the wrong kind of people', and I would definitely include 'Dead' in that category.

My best mate was on the Ambulance who attended this flight on its arrival.....

He said it was very strange to be showed into first class and remove the "corpse"

Not very pc to tell the rest of the story though............. :roll:

Tony

Hello Guys

Most airlines have a "land at closest airport in time" clause in their GOM/FOMs - The concept of moving a body in
front of 400 passengers to a "meat locker" is a bit off. Although many long range aircraft have such a stowage I dont
think it would be standard practice if you were over land , prehaps if over the Pacific or Atlantic, but I have heard of aircraft
diverting to Petro and Kef for exactly that circumstance. Flying as we do the the "blue" areas of florida we carry an
inordinate amount of "chronologically challenged customers" we average 4-5 medlink calls a day but so far havnt had
one shuffle off his mortal coil inflight.

Leif :dance:

You see how the standard of CSD has deteriorated since my day? :roll: I like to think that I'd have managed it a bit more discreetly First Class??? The only place worse than that would be the crew rest area :o And if I tried to put the body there the crew would have made sure that I soon joined it!

BA 744s don't have anywhere specifically to put a body - it doesn't happen that often. There is no access to the hold or underfloor area during flight except to the nosewheel electrics bay via a hatch in the first class cabin. But it's a bit of a tight squeeze and would be very difficult to do safely. Not really a serious option. As Nigel suggests - why not a toilet? Flights between India and the UK are always full and chaotic and with dozens of staff standing by it is unusual for even a first class seat to be available. Crew jump seats are usually taken as well. A toilet is obvious because you can lock it out of the way and leave it until everybody else has disembarked. The crew rest area will be required for ... crew rest. There is a mandatory requirement for crew to take a rest break, either under flight time limitation regulations or industrial agreements. Start exceeding that and you are looking at terminating the flight short and flying a replacement crew out.

Leif mentions Medlink which is the medical advice centre that most airlines subscribe to. Any medical incident on board and the CSD would be patched through to a doctor who knows exactly what your medical kit contains and where the nearest hospital is that is equipped for your emergency. They usually err on the side of caution and it is unlikely to be the crew's decision to continue the flight. Medlink must have been totally convinced that the person was deceased, so I think there must have been a well qualified doctor on board who confirmed it to them. In which case there is no point in diverting (unless their name is Lazarus).

The only time it happened to me was a Capetown to London service when a middle-aged man had a heart attack about two hours out of London. We diverted to Paris and although he was obviously dead by top of descent, we kept working on him. There were several reasons, not all of them altruistic! The two young doctors who had volunteered both had connecting flights in London and were also thoroughly enjoying themselves with free access to dozens of exotic drugs. We all had a chance to practise CPR and use the defibrillator. Besides, his wife was sitting nearby being distracted by a stewardess and we couldn't be seen to give up for her sake. But most importantly for me was the paperwork involved if he died on board!!! So there was an unspoken agreement that we kept at it until the paramedics wheeled him off. So officially he was alive when he left us (A French stewardess accompanied the wife to the hospital and stayed with her until she came home - we're not totally heartless!).

And do you remember the BA 744 Captain who passed away in the crew bunk on the Tokyo flight. That was nice and peaceful. When he didn't get up for the landing they asked a stewardess to give him a nudge - so nobody knew until they were almost down. So nothing much to be done in that case. No decisions to make - that's what I like, consideration for others!

Ian

"Please don't disturb my friend, he's dead tired"

That article was... disturbing to say the least :o

I do feel sorry for the passenger who woke up to see that situation and especially the flight attendants

Perhaps this may jolt BA into re-thinking their cabin layout and installing these temporary rooms mentioned :think:

Iain

Amazing isnt it Ian

There always seem to be 4 or 5 medical types on board dying to have a bash at our EMKs. As far as Medlink goes , I wasn't glossing over them
They do a sterling job and get the liability off our (the airlines) back. If the Medlink doc says land ...there is no question we land.


Leif

Could you imagine if they took the decision to lock the body in a toilet? In this day and age the family would undoubtedly sue and those headlines would be pretty hard to get out of peoples minds. Think of it this way:

"BA sat corpse in first class"

"BA sat corpse in the toilet"

As bad as the first one is the second one is a public relations nightmare. Yes it's the obvious, logical, most sensible thing to do, but it's a complete no-no in our modern media driven age where everyone gets their jollies from suing everyone else.