Flight crew have to deal with all eventualities including a deaths onboard their planes. Photo / Alev Takil, UNsplash
Flight crew have to deal with all eventualities including a deaths onboard their planes. Photo / Alev Takil, UNsplash
A flight attendant has used her social media to share one of the profession's more unpleasant and less discussed charges – and the internet was quick to react.
It is one of the great philosophical ponderings: 'What happens when we die?'
However for flight crew 'what happens when we die', particularly on a plane under their watch, it is a far more practical consideration.
For 25-year-old attendant Sheena Marie she was not squeamish in peeling back the rug on the practical steps of caring for a passenger who has departed prematurely. Her video captioned simply "…the end" has already earned over almost three million views.
"So what happens if we have to deal with a passenger who is literally already dead?" she asked her TikTok viewership.
25-year-old attendant Sheena Marie shared her experiences via TikTok. Photo / Supplied, Screengrab
The truth is at this point there is very little crew can do, says Sheena Marie, and the body is often left in place for the rest of the flight.
"If they have a heart attack and die, and there is nothing we can do about it, and we can't start CPR, we are just going to wait until we get to our final destination," she said.
"If there's enough room on the plane - one of the back rows is open - we will move the body."
However on a full plane, on a long haul flight passengers will have to sit tight, and remain next to the body.
The cabin crew member of two years was inundated by questions, mostly about how often this had happened to her.
"Please tell me this is uncommon and extremely rare," read one comment.
Others shared horror stories of flights next to an expired passenger.
"This happened to my mom while she was on a flight from New York to Ireland and she said they pretended the man was asleep."
Even on arrival at the plane's final destination, the saga is not over for those looking after the body.
"People [medical staff] will meet the plane, to get the body off the plane and we will call their next of kin," said Sheena Marie.
"It causes a scene because that plane has to be taken out of service for a while."
Today, depending on the point of departure, there may be additional steps which see not only the plane but all passengers being held in quarantine.
Even before the Covid-19 pandemic, the death of a passenger on a plane could raise suspicions and lead to public health investigations according to aviation writer John Walton. In a piece for the Budget Travel website he explained it is common to check itineraries to see if the deceased passenger had been to "an area of particular concern", such as West Africa during the Ebola epidemic.
To answer the anxious questions of TikTok viewers, it is indeed very rare for passengers to die on planes. Travel risk management service Global Rescue estimated that there are roughly 16 medical emergencies for every 1 million flights.
Of these mid-flight medical emergencies less than 0.3% were fatal, according to figures published by the New England Journal of Medicine in 2013. Of 9.1 billion passengers during 2019 peak this represents around 450 mid-air deaths a year.
It's a small risk but one that some airlines feel they have to go further to prepare for.
Particularly on long-haul flights the event of a death on a plane causes additional problems, with heavier fuel loads meaning aircraft cannot easily perform an emergency landing and there may not always be a suitable airport to divert to en route.
The Singapore Airlines Airbus A340-500 fleet, which used to fly the world's longest routes between Singapore and the US, included a built-in morgue.
A chilled locker area large enough to store a corpse was incorporated next to the bulkhead exits.
A time of launch in 2004, the airline said "the compartment will be used only if no suitable space can be found elsewhere in the cabin."
In a statement to the Guardian, a spokesperson for the airline said: "On the rare occasion when a passenger passes away during a flight the crew do all that is possible to manage the situation with sensitivity and respect."
Rather than an empty row, corpses are moved to first class. These premium cabins are often spacious and a more secluded, dignified place for passengers to undertake their final journey.
