A passenger in first class woke up to a shock when he found himself sitting near a corpse on a British Airways flight, British newspapers reported on Monday.
The cabin crew moved the body of the elderly woman from the economy section where she had died after take-off, the Mirror and Sun tabloids said.
“The corpse was strapped into the seat but because of turbulence it kept slipping down on to the floor,” Paul Trinder, a businessman, was quoted as saying. “It was horrific. The body had to be wedged in place with lots of pillows.”
The woman’s daughter was also upgraded and spent the rest of the nine-hour flight from Delhi to London grieving next to her dead mother, the Sun reported.
Now you know what it takes to get upgraded on British Airways.
What assholes, it’s just a body. What did they want done with a grieving family? I doubt any airline has refrigerated cadaver storage.
I’m all for free enterprise but come on. The word “flight” in this sentence, “The woman’s daughter was also upgraded and spent the rest of the nine-hour flight from Delhi to London grieving next to her dead mother, the Sun reported” links to Cheaptickets.com.
On one hand, I never mind seeing the privileged class having to deal with reality. I REALLY LIKE hearing that some self-absorbed Richie Rich was told to “get over it.” I’m guessing the coach passengers would be more compassionate to the bereaved and not complain that they didn’t get value for their over-priced ticket. (that detail was in our local paper)
But the pragmatic side of me wonders why they had to move the body to first class. I assume the previously-alive passenger already had a booked seat. Why not just keep her in it?
I also kind of assumed that planes have some sort of storage area they could store a body. With all the millions of passenger miles every year, this must happen now-and-again.
British Airways? You’d think they’d have thought of the “James Bond burial at sea throw the body out the door while over the ocean”.
What a horrible situation the daughter had to deal in such a long flight. I can’t imagine losing a parent beside you and dealing with it for 9 hours in the air. Not being able to go to the hospital right away must have been horrible for the daughter.
It’s sad that many in society have no compassion for their fellow man. Society is to blame for numbing us to life’s situations. I’m still young and see it every day in my life. I have no positive feeling that things will change for the future generations. I can’t imagine how society will be when I get into my elder years…
#5, Serpico: “society”? What a vauge allegation.
You seriously don’t think that people are becomming more compassionate over time? I challenge you to name a time in human history when people (on average) were more compassionate than they are now.
Given all the people being trapped on planes for 9+ hours with no food/water/working toilets (see “Flight To Nowhere” post), it’s a wonder more people aren’t dying in the cabin.
On this flight, the pilot refused to let this guy use the restroom, so he pees in a barf bag.
http://www.wftv.com/news/11286795/detail.html
I wouldnt have used the bag, I’d pee on the flight attendant.
I wonder why the staff didn’t wake up the other passenger *first*, if only to give him some warning.
#10 Pedro. Nice made-up law. Of course there will be more people at both ends of the distribution as population grows . But, the entire distribution has shifted. Slavery, starvation, torture, racism, intolerance, subjugation of women, etc. are decreasingly acceptable to the average person as time goes on.
serpico…you must be young, because they don’t take DEAD PEOPLE to hospitals!
Meanwhile, how is this all that different than when I had to wait for several hours with my deceased mother (in her condo) for the funeral home to come get her? You sit and grieve. Death happens. As a group Americans are weirder than any other group about death and grieving. We literally don’t want to deal with it.
I’d assume they moved the woman to first class, and probably that first row…so they could get the poor woman OUT OF THE PLANE, before the rest of the passengers disembarked….and, also so they COULD GET the woman out. Plus, a coroner would have to be there to “officiate” that the death was natural, before she could be moved. Rigor sets in as the body cools and blood pools….and trying to get a sitting position body out of a cramped place like a plane, would be very, very difficult. I’m sure they did it to try and not give the guys who had to remove her from getting hernias or have to disassemble the seats in that section of the plane, among other concerns.
Yeesh…
12 – When you get down to that level of detail, it kinda boggles the mind, doesn’t it? And here the flight attendants only expected to serve coffee, drinks and peanuts to the herd. I wonder if Flight Attendant School has a section on what to do when people die on your watch.
I’ve flown 1st. Class on BA many times and to be honest, I thought on several occasions that I was sitting near dead people.
Knowing BA as I do, I’m quite surprised they didn’t dump the lady’s body out of plane. The article said she died just after takeoff……guess it wasn’t an emergancy, so why go back to the airport, instead of making the whole flight with a corpse.
First post of the day….slow down cowboy….fuck ducks.
Uhh, #13, I worked a job where the logistics of taking out a very, very stiff ex-living human out of an apartment with narrow doors. Quite an eye opener, since the guy died “spread eagle” watching a football game (on a lounge chair, semi reclined, legs on either side of the foot rest). We didn’t even bother to pry the beer can out of his hand.
I am CERTAIN that flight attendants have some instruction on what to do to with a delivering a baby, dealing with a medical emergency, and how to facilitate taking a dead body out of the plane. In fact, they are required for “our safety”, so one would assume that they are trained in First Aid and CPR, etc. They aren’t there to serve drinks and peanuts as much as they are necessary to keep a cabin full of unrelated people calm and in their seats, administer their needs, and enforce rules. It’s not a brain dead job, as much as it might look like one.
And, I’d guess that the daughter was the one who made the decision to stay on the plane and not freak out and insist on a return to the terminal. (Perhaps she was transporting Ma home?) Anyway, dead bodies don’t cause problems……they just sit there, ….if they’re strapped in.
Yeah, people die on airplanes. A lot of people fly, a tiny percentage die. It’s such a bummer that some airline has a special coffin cabinet in a some of its’ jets.