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1 July 2001
Dead
err
Why airline passengers never die in flight
By Terry Riley
First there was the email I got from Charles Hullett, a frequent traveler from
Nebraska. Charles was sitting next to a retired United Airlines exec on a flight to
Florida when the guy up and kicks the bucket. The following week Charles inquired about
the event as he checked in for his return flight.
In Charles’ words: "I ask the customer service agent about the guy I was
sitting next to who died. 'Oh, he didn't die. He was stabilized on the jetway, but died in
the ambulance on the way to the hospital.' My ass he was stable. He was stable because he
was DEAD! You can't get much more stable than that!"
No, Charles, you can’t.
Next I read about a Canadian family that sat next to a critically ill passenger who
"checked out" during a five-hour flight from the Marshall Islands to Honolulu.
The Vancouver Province reported one of the
family members saying that the family "got to see him choking and gagging and
frothing and everything. And his leg kept coming out into the aisle beside me. We were
trying to push it back in so the food cart wouldn't run over it. (I suppose you
wouldn’t want to miss the chicken dinner just because the guy next to you was
choking, gagging, and frothing. — Ed.) [The airline] just sort of propped him up
with a pillow under his head and tucked him in like he was having a nap."
Then a few weeks ago I awoke to a Paul Harvey radio broadcast about
a woman—I think her name was Vera Anderson—who dreamed of traveling. She never
did. But now that she’s dead, she is… well, how would you say it?…
"dying" her dream. Seems that her relatives have divvied up her ashes and are
sending them to all 50 U.S. states so she can have a postmortal look 'round.
Now all this got me thinking about the chances that on my next flight I could wind up
with a seatmate who will move to the great departure lounge in the sky before we reach our
earthly destination. Though I’d love to have ol’ Vera as a companion—she
wouldn’t hog the armrest or want to chat too much—is there really much chance of
that happening? Well the Aviation Health
Institute estimates that in 1998, for instance, about 1000 people died in their seats
while flying. That compares with 730 people who died in crashes.
That seems like a lot of stiffs to be flying around. So I surveyed flight attendants
about what they do if and when a passenger makes the BIG Departure.
The answer I got at first puzzled me. I was told over and over that the airlines had
no procedures for handling dead passengers because no passengers go to their great reward
while on board.
Huh? How can this be?
A particularly helpful United Airlines flight attendant guided me in understand this
apparent contradiction. First, death requires declaration of that state by a physician,
and no doc worth his malpractice insurance premiums is going to pronounce a passenger dead
on an airplane. (Real, real sick maybe, but not dead.) So what happens is that instead of
passengers becoming "Dead In Flight" on an airplane, they end up DOA at a
hospital (like Charles' companion).
The other issue, of course, is that if somebody really
does die in flight, there would likely be an investigation of the death. That would
cause a delay of departure for the following flight of the aircraft. Talk about a tragedy!
© 2001 Applied Psychology
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