Death on Airplanes: How Do Flight Crews Handle a Death Onboard?

30 Morbid Minutes

Society & Culture, True Crime, History

4.8 • 731 Ratings

🗓️ 24 March 2025

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In-flight medical emergencies occur about once every 604 flights, with a mortality rate of 0.3% of those incidents. While extremely rare, if someone dies, specification actions must be taken. So what happens when a plane passenger dies during a flight? Or even the pilot? We investigate. Leave us a review -- it helps the show! :) Follow Us 30MorbidMinutes Elyse Willems Jessica Vasami Music by Casey Edwards - @ComposerCasey Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This podcast covers mature, intense, morbid, and sometimes just scary stuff.
0:04.2	Listener discretion is advised.
0:06.3	Sometimes an oxygen mask isn't enough.
0:08.7	Prepare for takeoff in 30 morbid minutes. I was so poetic, Jess.
0:27.0	I almost laughed midway through.
0:30.7	Oh, hi, everyone.
0:35.8	I know.
0:36.5	We're feeling silly today. We're feeling silly today. But welcome to the podcast where we cover
0:42.6	topics of a morbid macab, dark and downright grizzly nature. I'm Elise Willems. And I'm Jessica
0:47.8	Sammy. In Star Trek 2, The Wrath of Khan, Mr. Spock dies of radiation poisoning. Captain Kirk and the crew takes Spock's
0:55.4	body and put it inside a little pod, then they jettison that pod like a rocket out of the
0:59.9	enterprise, sending it into deep space to eventually land on the Genesis planet, all while a very
1:05.7	tasteful bagpipe rendition of Amazing Grace plays on. Yeah, this is what the Trekkies and the host of this
1:12.6	podcast referred to as a space burial. It is said to be one of the most moving scenes in all of
1:18.9	Star Trek lore. Yeah, I would love to have one someday, but it's called science fiction for a reason,
1:23.8	people. Okay, emphasis on the fiction fiction because people's dead bodies are not just
1:27.6	ejected into space willy-nilly. Maybe they are a few or 55-year-old Vulcan science officer,
1:32.7	which is quite young for a Vulcan, as we all know, they can live upwards of 200 years.
1:36.7	But that is not the case for a real-world passenger who happens to die on a plane
1:41.9	during a commercial airline flight.
1:45.7	Yeah, have you guys ever thought about that?
1:50.5	Because that's what we're talking about today is what happens when somebody dies mid-journey on an airplane.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from 30 Morbid Minutes, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of 30 Morbid Minutes and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.