Flight attendant reveals what happens if a passenger dies onboard
A flight attendant has revealed what happens if a passenger dies onboard, and the morbid reason the protocol has changed in recent years.
Mandy Smith has been a flight attendant for 12 years and thankfully, hasn’t had to encounter such a tragedy during one of her flights.
According to the protocol of the airline she serves, previously when passengers passed away on board they used to be put inside the bathrooms, but now their bodies are laid across the front seats.
She explained to LadBible, “This has not happened to me, thankfully. It happened to a friend of mine, where they had a passenger pass away on the flight.”
“Now, we used to have to put passengers in the bathrooms, and then lock the bathrooms off. But because they would be seated on the toilet, as they sat there - if rigour mortis set in - then they would be then stuck in that position, and they wouldn't be able to fit in their coffin.”
'So, 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.'
Mandy also explained that according to different laws, if someone dies on a flight, cabin crew officially have to keep going to their final destination.
She said, “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.”
Image credits: YouTube