A former flight attendant has shared insights into the procedures followed on a commercial flight if a passenger dies during the journey.
While it’s an unfortunate and rare situation, some individuals may encounter this difficult scenario while traveling.
Handling such incidents is also challenging for the airline staff, and a flight attendant, recounting a friend’s experience, has provided details on how such a situation was managed on one unfortunate occasion.
Mandy Smith, who worked for Virgin Atlantic, revealed to LADbible the official protocol when faced with such a tragedy.
Although it might sound cinematic, these events do occasionally occur in reality.
“This has not happened to me, thankfully,” Smith mentioned in an episode of Honesty Box. “It has happened to a friend of mine, where they’ve had a passenger pass away on the flight.
“We used to have to put passengers in the bathrooms, and then lock the bathrooms off.”
This approach aimed to provide privacy for the deceased and to separate them from other passengers, albeit with complications.
Smith, also discussing the mile high club, explained: “Because they would be seated on the toilet, as they sat there – if rigor mortis set in – then they would be then stuck in that position, and they wouldn’t be able to fit in their coffin.”
Rigor mortis, the stiffening of a body after death, can necessitate morticians to undertake additional steps to fit someone into their coffin.
This involves manipulating the muscles and joints to alleviate the tension, akin to massaging the body.
A way to avoid this is by laying the body flat immediately so that it sets in a more manageable position.
Smith noted: “Unfortunately, now, we have to lay them across the front of the seats and try and calm their loved ones down.
“Treat them with respect, cover them with blankets, and maybe just cordon the area off with blankets tucked into the overheads, which is what I would probably do.”
The ex-flight attendant continued: “If they passed away on board, it’s the law that we, as cabin crew, have to keep going. So, we have to keep doing any kind of resuscitation until they’re deemed to be deceased.
“So, if it was an accident that happened on board, or if they had a heart attack, we would then just keep going doing CPR.
“But if it was someone who passed away from natural causes or another kind of ailment, then obviously, we wouldn’t need to do anything to them then.
“We’d need to contact the ground services to be met by an ambulance or the coroner. We wouldn’t really do it as an emergency landing; we’d just treat it as a normal landing if that person’s definitely passed away.”