Summary
A couple on a Qatar Airways flight from Melbourne to Doha was forced to sit next to a deceased passenger for four hours after she collapsed and died mid-flight.
The flight crew moved the woman’s body to an empty seat beside them and denied their request to change seats.
Qatar Airways apologized but did not offer the couple support after the incident.
The couple, en route to Venice, criticized the airline’s handling of the situation but are trying to continue their trip despite the distressing experience.
I’ve sat next to many a passenger who was dead from the neck upwards.
On a related note, why don’t more people just drop dead while driving a car? Like I can’t think of a single story that I’m aware of that went “yeah he had a heart attack and then ran the car off the road”
I feel like it should be a daily occurrence
I knew someone that was orphaned in high school because his dad had a heart attack, crashed, killed himself and his wife.
Probably because after they do, they crash and it will generally be assumed the crash is what killed them.
See Harry Chapin.
I used to work with a lady who, upon missing her shift, the next day the managers were all going around quietly telling staff that she died on her way to work, that she’d had a massive stroke while driving. New fear unlocked that day. But yeah I guess you don’t hear about it on the news because the may just assume car accident is what causes the fatalities.
Does anyone know if there’s actual protocol in these situations?
I actually know someone who died on a plane last year and, while they did at least make an emergency landing at a nearby airport, I’ve never thought about where they kept the body during that time. I’m not sure if it’s appropriate to ask his surviving family that was with him, probably not.
Cover the body, and relocate surrounding passengers, if possible, if you can’t move the body to business class (moving a dead body respectfully is very hard).
Apparently there were free seats elsewhere, the pax should have been offered relocation.
However it’s not clear if the passengers asked. The cabin crew could have been rattled too and forgot.Edit: They apparently asked, I don’t see why they couldn’t move.
Yeah fuck Qatar Air
Perhaps it’s time to bring back the amenity that Singapore Airlines devised to handle this situation on their ultra-long-haul flights in the Airbus 340-500 – the corpse cupboard: https://simpleflying.com/singapore-airlines-airbus-a340-500-corpse-cupboards-history/
The airline installed a discreet locker next to one of the aircraft’s exit doors to hold an average-sized human body. Special straps were also provided to secure the body and prevent it from being moved by turbulence or during landing.
Accurate. Are you a summarization bot?
I think he might just be some guy. Possibly the 3rd in a long line of guys.
Yes, but it’s operating on a biological substrate.
A trained neural network of sorts
Poll:
Would you rather sit next to a dead person or a crying baby for 4 hours on a plane?
Personally, I’d take the dead person.
I seem to be in the minority, but the baby.
Kids are awesome. Little bundles experiencing new things constantly. It’s fucking cool.
Personally, I’d take the dead person.
dead bodies sometimes shit or urinate themselves. and your just being hotboxed in a plane.
Babies shit and piss themselves constantly.
A baby’s shitty diaper pales in comparison to the recently deceased evacuation of bowels of an adult human.
Yes
Keep in mind, dead people evacuate their bowels. It’s not a mummy type situation, but more of a sitting next to an open, used by concert goers, porta potty situation.
I mean, only sometimes. Stuff kind of comes out of bodies at it’s own pace.
So do babies. At least the dead person just stinks and isn’t also screaming.
Baby shit =/= Adult shit
Plus they’re easily cleaned and changed.
Baby shit =/= Adult shit
For the parents, no.
I have bad news for you about babies. And many people make sure to fully evacuate before a flight because they will do anything to avoid that bathroom.
Are you sure because too many times I’ve been on a 2hr flight and there’s a line for the lav the entire time. It’s a mystery I will never understand.
At least this one had the courtesy to go to the toilet first
Is there an option to turn even more of the other passengers into bodies?
Wait! No, don’t put me on the list -
I hate that your offer is appealing. But only briefly – the baby was never going to win.
I rather sit next to a baby than half the people on flights
Damn it, I’ll take the corpse
A baby is annoying, but they can’t really help it. I can blame the parents for bringing a baby on a long flight, but I can’t get mad at that shit.
Kids on the other hand. I once had 4 unruly kids sitting on the row behind me and they were insane. It was a relatively short flight (6 hours), so a smaller plane with those really thin seats. The plane had the 3-3 configuration of seats, so mom, dad and the 4 kids took up the entire row.
The kids were between 4 and 12 years old. Dad was in the corner sleeping, not giving a fuck. The two older kids (12 and 9 I think) were playing their Switches on the other side of the aisle next to dad. The two younger kids (4 and 7) were behind me with mom. Mom was in the corner with the smallest kid and they were wild. The 7 year old was constantly smashing against their tray and thus my back, kept kicking directly against my back and screaming all the time. The smallest alternated between laughing loudly and crying (shrieking more like). The smallest also stood on the tray, grabbing at my seat and head, diving in between the seat screaming PEEKABOO at full volume directly in my ear. The smallest one would also like to run in the aisle or visit the other kids, but the other one didn’t want to move so the kid snuck in between the other one and my seat.
Mom was trying, but 4 kids on your own is a big ask. About 20 mins before we landed the two younger ones passed out and they were pretty damned cute. But in the end my back hurt, I was exhausted and deaf in one ear.
The annoying part was, the rest of the plane was filled with old people who didn’t make a peep all flight, just sat there and read, listened and slept. But we just had to be in the worst place on the plane. Sitting behind kids may be annoying, but at least they don’t use your back as a punching bag like when you sit in front of them.
World’s (or at least, That Plane’s) Worst Dad
Thanks for nothing, Peter.
The smallest also stood on the tray, grabbing at my seat and head, diving in between the seat screaming PEEKABOO at full volume directly in my ear.
I would’ve grabbed the kids arm and traumatised him for life
A baby is annoying, but they can’t really help it.
I doubt the dead person had much control of the situation either.
Sometimes I am reminded of a book I read as a kid wherein one of the main characters dies and is eventually resurrected. She says that when you die, you don’t lose awareness or move on, you just passively occupy the body without the ability to move (like locked-in syndrome, I guess, but I didn’t know that as a kid and don’t know whether it was even recognized back then). In particular she describes the horrors of her autopsy.
If that were true, I wonder whether the person within the cadaver would be embarrassed to have caused such inconvenience. I know I would.
100% the dead person. I’d rather jump than stay next to the baby.
You do realize it’s still on the ground when you find out who you’re sitting near. Until they’ve closed the doors, you’re completely free to nope the fuck out of there and hope for a later flight.
That’s why they’ll just jump. They won’t be far from the ground.
Yeah, apparently people took my comment seriously.
If autism is a spectrum, you’re still a boolean
Right, sure …
Qatar Airways introduces new “corpse class” seating—no upgrades, but plenty of legroom for one.
😿😿😿😿
Can I get more seat room instead of leg room. Wanna lie down for a bit
Couldn’t have placed the body in the cargo hold or one of the bathrooms? I think passengers wouldn’t have minded being one bathroom down.
Why not secure it in a flight attendant seat in the back and the flight attendant take the seat next to the living people?
It makes the most sense.
Even if the body was in the aisle seat… Can you imagine hauling a body down the aisle of a fully booked flight?
Just put on the seatbelt sign and do a parabolic arc to simulate microgravity. Way easier to nudge a body around then!
It sounds like they already moved the body after death. They specifically moved the body to that seat.
I feel like they low key hated that particular couple.
They flew all the way from Melbourne to go to Venice of all places, can’t help but get the mental image of an obnoxious insta couple.
Put it in the first class or the crew bunkers. Anywhere but there…
Doubtful those are actual options. Bathroom? How are they going to secure the body incase of an emergency? It’ll just be bouncing around in the bathroom. I don’t think the door is strong enough to keep the body from falling out. And access to the cargo hold through the plane is very tight/small. It’s hard enough to be an able body person getting down there. Dragging a body would be next to impossible.
Access to the cargo hold? That’s a myth made up by movies. Checked bags have different security standards for a reason, they’re completely separate from passengers.
That depends on the aircaft. It’s very accessible on the ART42/72.
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Excuse me, but movies told me there’s a trap door or tiny elevator to get down there, is that not the case??
Deleted my comment.
After looking into it more; there is access inside, but it’s typically secured with a pressure differential and several locks.
They’d only really access it if absolutely required; for example to fight a fire in the cargo hold.
Bathroom would have been a good solution. Or just move her to a back seat and move the living passengers away. Bizarre they forced a couple to sit beside her.
I don’t think you needed to delete your comments; they were just being cheeky hahaha
Also as a person who has only flown a couple times, I didn’t know there wasn’t a way to the cargo hold (though when I think about it, it makes sense… shit’s pressurized, yo)
I think the only thing they’re pissed about is the airline didn’t allow them to move seats after they put the woman not in her original seat and probably being forced to stay on the plane longer than needed, potentially missing their connection to Venice, while medics came on board to haul her away.
If the flight wasn’t full and they didn’t allow them to move seats that’s extremely messed up.
Technically, there was at least 1 free seat since the woman wasn’t using it anymore.
But that begs the question, assuming the entire plane was full then the lady was sitting next to at least one other person. They moved her from that seat to be in next to the couple in question. So it seems to me there is no situation where it’s not extremely messed up.
Yeah the only thing I could think of was that maybe the couple didn’t want to split up and there was only 1 other free seat.
But I think we’ll just learn that the airline was being incompetent.
Honestly they could’ve secured the body to one of the flight staff seats. If there’s no extra, the flight attendant could sit next to a passenger.
That’s a good point. Wonder why they didn’t just do that?
Cause flight crew are seated next to emergency exits for a reason. Safety > inconvenience
Most of the planes I’ve been on had at least some crew seats tucked into the back and out of the way of the primary exits if I am remembering correctly. There probably is a good reason, such as tripping hazards for the crew doing their work or the seats not really being effective for long term seating and keeping the body in place (I’m thinking of the fold down crew seats).
Even if it was full they should have found an alternate method of securing the body. They’re already dead, they don’t need a seat.
I think the problem likely comes down to safety and respect for the dead.
Put the body in the back galley and suddenly the plane hits rough turbulence and that body is now a +100 pound projectile.
Putting the body in a bathroom seems better, but that turbulence hits and now the body is flying around in there during the rough turbulence, and then the next day the media is lambasting the air line for desecrating the body or whatever.
Then not having an alternate plan in place is on the airline, if there was nothing else the crew could do.
I think it’s more the nature of modern air craft. There isn’t much spare room and space is extremely expensive on planes. Meanwhile, these deaths rarely occur.
There’s probably some way to design a system to secure a body in the bathroom, however, and I broadly agree with you that they should have some type of solution.
I think that’s probably too morbid if they have a death seat designed into airplanes.
Besides, what if two passengers die on the plane?
I imagine any solution they come up with will be out of sight until it’s needed and you could equip multiple bathrooms or whatever space. Although two people dying like this is probably astronomically rare.
I mean… it is shit but there isn’t a lot to do in this situation.
You might think they should put the body in the bathroom or cargo hold. Actual direct access to the cargo hold during flight is not feasible on most passenger flights due to pressurization/climate and safety concerns. Also, if they don’t have enough straps to tie down the body then that is going to be a REALLY bad PR mess when they remove a corpse that had been bouncing around and off of luggage during a landing. And if they do have enough straps, that is a completely different PR mess.
Same for the bathroom. For a 14 hour flight I assume this jet had multiple bathrooms. But you still have the problem of a body that bounced around a bathroom during landing.
Versus? You get it away from the family so they are less traumatized. You then put a blanket on it and buckle it in so that the body is safe.
It would really suck to be the people next to where teh body ended up. But if the flight was full? Having a flight attendant say “Excuse me. Is anyone cool with sitting next to a dead body?” isn’t going to end well… and all but guarantees you get the kind of people who shouldn’t be allowed near a corpse to volunteer.
MAYBE put them in a flight attendant seat but those tend to be near the galley which has its own health issues. And if it is a flight with sleeping quarters for the crew (likely for a 14 hour flight) that is both a safety concern (crew can’t rest) AND all the same “body bouncing around” problems as the others.
As for what Qatar Airways should have done? Personally, I would have just offered the couple a shit ton of miles. A full refund isn’t “right” since we have all sat next to things we don’t want to (I would honestly rather sit next to a corpse than a morbidly obese person who insists on resting their arms over my body the entire flight…). And general counseling really isn’t something the airline has on staff, although it would be nice if they offered to pay for some of it.
“Excuse me. Is anyone cool with sitting next to a dead body?” isn’t going to end well… and all but guarantees you get the kind of people who shouldn’t be allowed near a corpse to volunteer.
They could have asked if anyone had medical experience, then followed up with the spiel about there being a body on board and needing someone who can handle it. The pool of potential volunteers would be narrowed down to those who could provide some basic postmortem care and then respectfully stay with the body through the rest of the flight. The potential for abuse would still be there ofc, but it’d be way lower than just outright asking who’s cool with hanging out with a corpse for a few hours.
…honestly, saying that, it might not be a horrible idea to have a “I’m a medical professional” checkbox when buying the ticket. Even as ‘just’ a tech, I could handle some basic emergencies and wouldn’t be horribly traumatized around a body. Shit, throw in a free flight in the event that some kind of emergency intervention is needed, and I’d be down to have my name added to some kind of short list of volunteers for every single flight.
That’s right. I’m a doctor.
It would make the most sense to move the body to a flight attendant seat and have an attendant sit with the passengers. Unless the flight is close to its destination, then it’s probably best to just leave it as moving a corpse is a real pain.
It would make the most sense to move the body to a flight attendant seat and have an attendant sit with the passengers.
I think that the flight attendants have those dedicated seats at the ends of the cabin and facing it for a reason, so that they can see what’s going on in the cabin. Like, probably safety reasons for that.
Honestly, I’d just as soon not have a corpse next to me…but I’d also just as soon not have a living person next to me. I don’t see it as the world’s most traumatic experience. I mean, I don’t know whether it’s optimal or not, but it’s an airplane, sticking it there isn’t a wildly-unreasonable thing to do. I can’t see getting that worked up over it, as a passenger.
On the flip side, I also don’t think that it’s wildly-unreasonable for the airline to give them a voucher. I mean, it’s not like “dead body on an aircraft” is a common occurrence and it probably doesn’t cost very much to keep someone happy. I mean, I’ve gotten vouchers for being willing to take a later flight when I didn’t have any schedule to keep.
The whole thing just doesn’t seem like enough of an issue to get that worked up about or play hardball over.
MAYBE put them in a flight attendant seat but those tend to be near the galley which has its own health issues. And if it is a flight with sleeping quarters for the crew (likely for a 14 hour flight) that is both a safety concern (crew can’t rest) AND all the same “body bouncing around” problems as the others.
It would make the most sense to move the body to a flight attendant seat and have an attendant sit with the passengers. Unless the flight is close to its destination, then it’s probably best to just leave it as moving a corpse is a real pain.
I don’t think that would be allowed as per safety regulations.
Flight attendants are safety personnel who also serve food and drinks.
The jump seats facing the passengers are there for a reason.
Having said that if airlines would be allowed to fly without flight attendants they would.
It sounds cold but isnt this kind of the point of a body bag? To contain a human corpse without contaminating the surroundings, as well as ease of transportation, while also not taking up a huge amount of space when unneeded?
Good points! I was thinking more of the seats they have in the crew area (not all planes have it though), but I suppose contamination would still be a problem, although how much contamination can a fresh corpse really spread versus a living person?
And, as an aside, one of my “favorite” flight stories:
Was flying into DFW for a connection to get home. About an hour before we landed, the flight attendants got up to do their usual credit card schpiel but cut off partway through and rushed to the back. Everyone around me turned around to look. I… went back to my book.
A few minutes later they actually do an “Is anyone a doctor” call. Then ten or so minutes later they talk about how when we land everyone needs to stay seated while a passenger is removed from the flight. And then… they got back on the intercom to say that we should ignore that request and deplane normally.
I meant to check what said passenger died of (even if the medical emergency was under control they would have wanted to get them off ASAP for liability reasons) but it had snowed three states over so DFW was already a refugee camp at 6 PM as every single flight was cancelled or delayed. By the time I got home (three days later…) I was already too lazy to check exactly when we landed and so forth.
I guess?? In case of a medical emergency they would typically try to make an emergency landing (I hope??). So how did this person die, and how certain were they that they could not recessitate? Did it happen over sea or land? Honestly it raises a ton of questions.
It happened over the sea.
Its an international flight. I went to american public school so my geography is shit but Australia to Qatar has a lot of countries in between, all with their own visa and even safety requirements.
If it were an actual medical emergency where they (at the airline) felt an emergency landing (which would still be closer to hours away anyway) would make a difference AND they could safely land somewhere that was willing to isolate the passengers who aren’t legally authorized to be in country (also potential quarantine concerns)? They would.
Otherwise? You go to the nearest safe place to land which is often the destination anyway.
That is why you’ll see the occasional story about how a transatlantic flight got halfway across and then turned around because of a problem. And a friend who used to fly passenger flights from LAX to HND would always talk about the point of no return where any diversion is about as long as the flight itself anyway.
Flying from Melbourne to Doha is almost entirely over the ocean.
With 4 hours left in a 13h flight, they were probably near Sri Lanka but the Colombo airport is one of the busiest in South Asia, and as you say, it’s a huge hassle to divert.
If the movie Commando has taught me anything, it’s that a dead person covered to look like they are asleep, can make an 8 hour flight without notice.
You just need a blanket and a pillow (and John Matrix).We all have so much to learn from Commando.
I made a ton of extra room in my Camry by ripping the seats out like a goddamn silverback.
Go ahead, put me next to the body. But don’t for a second think you can stop me from acting out that scene in Commando for the rest of the flight.
“Please dont disturb my friend, he’s dead tired”
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This plus unruly passengers is why I think a spare seat away from the other passengers should be mandatory on all passenger planes. Then we wouldn’t get dead bodies with nowhere to put them or dangerous passengers duct taped to their seat.
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