Flying for 12 hours with a corpse
Leaving Heathrow I was in seat 3A. As we entered the runway there was shouting from cabin crew behind me, telling someone to sit down. 3 minutes after becoming airborne a call went out over the PA asking for a medical professional. A short time later I see the passengers in seats 1A and 1K being moved. 30 minutes after departure a corpse is carried into the 1st class cabin and put in 1K. The poor chap had died as we were taking off. His unfortunate wife was put in 1A and cabin crew did their best to console her. So far, what happened was upsetting but everyone acted as best as can be expected. It is what happened next that bothers me.
We were flying for 12 hours to Singapore, so I, and everyone else, expected that we would land, either back at Heathrow or somewhere in Europe, and the poor man and his distressed wife would be off-loaded. But no - we pressed on! Thus for 12 hours I was sitting in a makeshift morgue and for 12 hours the poor woman 2 seats in front of me was forced to sit next to her husband's dead body. Some of the cabin crew were in tears at times and, let me assure you, having a decomposing body only a few feet away in not something which is easy to ignore.
So, as a humble SLF, my question is simple. Who amongst the professional pilots here would have done what our flight crew did?