Supposing you board a plane greater than a few times a yr — chances are high good you’ve flown the friendly skies with a dead body for company.
With the spooky scenario making headlines greater than once already in 2025 — most recently after a pair flying on Qatar Airways wound up sharing their row with a blanket-draped corpse for hours — passengers can’t help but wonder in the event that they’re the subsequent to seek out themselves uncomfortably near an abnormally quiet seatmate.
And while it’s common for people to achieve their final destination before the plane lands, experts say that out of the 50,000 bodies said to be transported by airplanes per yr, most are riding snugly and securely within the cargo hold.
Despite the indisputable fact that each instance receives a fantastic deal of media coverage, “death onboard a business aircraft is definitely quite rare,” a medical skilled speaking on behalf of medivac service Global Rescue told Conde Nast Traveler.
In keeping with a 2021 study published within the American Journal of Emergency Medicine, there have been 18.2 medical emergencies per million passengers flown in a given yr — and a mortality rate of just 0.21 per million, the article cited.
And even out of that mortality rate, a few of the deaths aren’t entirely unexpected, a representative for one more medical support service, MedAire, previously told a reporter for the glossy title.
For instance, it’s not unheard of for terminally in poor health patients to travel one last time as a dying wish, which airlines reportedly do allow despite the risks.
“If you happen to don’t accommodate the passenger, they wouldn’t have their very last wish,” Dr. Paulo Alves said. “So airlines might enter into some accord with the family, agreeing upfront that the flight won’t divert. Sometimes the person carries a proper [Do Not Recusitate] certificate, too.”
And flight crews are presupposed to be prepared for the worst — receiving training to handle the situation with maximum sensitivity.
“We would like to be as respectful as possible if that [death on board] actually happens,” flight attendant Brieana Young said in a 2021 interview.
“They’re put of their seat especially for landing to be certain that they’re secured within the aircraft, but what’s interesting with that’s when the aircraft does land, it is taken into account against the law scene.
“So the police come on and assess the entire aircraft and the passengers. So if that [death on board] ever happens in your flight, expect to be there for a little bit while after you land,” Young said.
Most incessantly, bodies are transported with numerous careful advance planning and adherence to guidelines set out by regulators for repatriating human stays, that are treated very like other cargo — with loads of protocol to follow and paperwork to be done.
But when the unexpected does occur on a future flight, here’s what you may typically expect, in keeping with procedure outlined by the International Air Travel Association (IATA).
First, crew should try to maneuver the deceased somewhere away from other passengers.
If the flight is full, they might be moved to a different area of the plane that doesn’t obstruct any emergency exit routes.
Crew are also instructed to to “take extra care when moving the person and pay attention to the problem of the situation for companions and onlookers,” the organization urged.
And sometimes, the situation is greater than the onlookers can handle.
In 2023, a “traumatized” British Airways passenger went viral in a later-deleted social media post expressing each their anger over having to witness an in-cabin death — and their desire to have their flight refunded.
The “infuriated” traveler said she and her family had been left “extremely sad” by the episode, experiencing “many sleepless nights.”
