Originally Posted by
suninmyeyes
I agree with DeepInsider. It is not a sensible commercial decision to divert to offload a deceased passenger and can lead to the crew going out of hours and logistical nightmares with hotels. It also then leads to significant extra problems for relatives of the deceased offloaded passenger to get the body from some remote outstation to the place of burial which can be very expensive. So noone really benefits from the diversion.
Aside from the expense, there are significant legal consequences to the person's estate if they are declared dead in a remote location. And some local coroners will impound the plane for a quarantine period as happened with a fatality on descent into Portugal. Fortunately, I've never had a death onboard as an operating crewmember, I have had it happen years ago as a passenger on a company ticket though.
I've always been trained not to say in company communications that someone has died in flight, rather say they are unresponsive and not breathing. Also, if possible, avoid a declaration of death until after landing to avoid questions of jurisdiction.
If the flight was OZ236 on October 11, it was a B-772 on the 'P' route, A590 over the NOPAC. Diverting overweight to UHPP to offload a deceased pax would not be my choice.