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.

An out-of-hospital heart attack is statistically not survivable. It depends on many factors of course, but being literally hours away from the neatest emergency room (of varying capability) does not bode well. It’s a risk every single passenger assumes when boarding a flight, long haul or not.

Taking a fully-laden widebody into an enroute alternate airport is not without elevated risk for everyone else on board. Some of you wouldn’t make good commanders with your emotion-driven responses. A physician on board and medical advice via satcom would have been taken into account during the decision process. It’s not about costs, but rather, managing risk.

At my US based major airline we have a
policy against and will not declare anyone
deceased in flight


Doctors onboard will be solicited, all assistance used and co ordination with
Med Link will help in making the divert decision but this scenario ‘he’s dead so
we might as well continue’ would not be
acceptable

Not sure I understand what you are saying. Would your airline divert to say, Petro (UHPP) to have the local official declare the pax deceased? Would you risk having the plane impounded pending a death investigation? Would you offload the body in Kamchatka? Or have it transferred to the cargo hold after necessary paperwork and formalities were accomplished?

But it is indeed the Catch 22 that you can't say the passenger is dead so you can't say that further assistance will not be rendered even if you know that it would be futile.

ANC has a gas and go service for offloading rowdy trans-pac pax with an on call magistrate and FBI agent to process them into federal custody. Unfortunately, many perps seem to be on the catch and release program but at least they run up a tab to discourage future misbehavior. Perhaps the Anchorage folks could process a death with a quick stop as well but at that point why not press on to ORD as OZ did?

https://www.theguardian.com/business...try.travelnews

I have had three passengers die on my flights. On one flight, there was no reasonable alternate, and he died before landing at destination. In the other two cases, we initiated diversions, but were able to turn back to our planned destination, once the passenger’s death was confirmed.

Landing because someone had died, simply makes no sense. It’s not as if they’re going to bring him back to life.

We had a situation like this, had a pax die around 2 hours into a 10hour flight, the death was confirmed by a Medical Dr who was onboard and the appropriate paperwork was signed. Yes we could have turned back and offloaded the body but it would have been cruel to do so, you see this person now deceased also had family members onboard who were all resident in the port of destination not departure. How cruel would it be if we had diverted and returned to offload the body and then we would have had to offload the family as they would presumably want to be with their loved one. Then they are in a foreign place with a dead relative having to figure out what the hell to do next. We continued and yes some other pax complained but hey, toughen the hell up, what was important her pe was he needs of the family concerned, we placed them in a couple of rows by themselves (business class) with the deceased and moved the miffed business pax back into economy. To this day I know it was the right call, some went to local media with the usual crap but was very pleased when the Widow came out and said how grateful she was for our compassion and consultation with them in making our decision.

Pprune is unique in that it was designed as a forum for professional pilots but is now open for anyone to come on and express their opinion. You would never find an open forum for professional surgeons where people with no medical experience or training could post their criticisms of surgeons and they how they could do it better.

There are some situations where frankly it is best that passengers did not know what is happening, ie dispatching with technical difficulties, reroutes resulting in minimum fuel, commiting to a destination airfield without fuel to divert. Professional issues where there are rules and standard procedures may sometimes come as a surprise to what a passenger might expect. This is thread is typical where someone has described a situation thinking it is unusual and may have been badly handled when it is actually quite common and has probably been properly handled. Some of the initial posters clearly think a diversion was merited and expressed outrage that it did not happen. A lot of professional pilots no longer read this forum due to the drivel frequently expressed by emotive people who may be very competent in the field they work in but do not understand a lot of the basics of running an airline.

I know I say this every time but if I crap on long enough maybe eventually someone will hear what I’m saying

heart attack =/= cardiac arrest

out of hospital heart attack- eminently survivable
out of hospital cardiac arrest- less so (5-10% tops depending on the measure of survival used)

Heart Attack or Sudden Cardiac Arrest: How Are They Different? | American Heart Association

I am with you and those who take a pragmatic approach to the matter at hand. Obviously, this is a situation which makes feelings prevail over rational thinking with many people.

The policy at my airline is no one dies in flight. The death has to be confirmed on the ground. We divert if someone passes away. I have never heard of a airline carrying body bags. If you place a body in a lav and rigor sets in you won’t get the body out. There is also the issue of if they are really dead. Mistakes are made in that regard at hospitals with proper equipment. It’s far more likely on a aircraft.

2 things

As I understand it the bowels evacuate upon death. I suppose depending on their contents.

By the time the flight landed rigor would have occurred. I would assume the body would need to be in a supine position to allow easy removal at landing.

Similar where I work, medlink will be consulted. Medlink do not recommend a diversion for an apparent death at any time. We will have an ambulance on arrival and the passenger will be transported to hospital.

While we do not carry body bags we carry something that resembles a zip up sleeping bag with handles that comes up to the armpits that can contain any fluids. A passenger can be placed into this while on the floor easily enough and allowes the cabin crew to safety handle the passenger. The passenger is placed back in a normal seat with a seat belt on. They are not covered up.

This is kept with other protective equipment like gloves, masks, aprons that are used to clean up and store blood, vomit etc.