Lawsuit: Body found hours after plane landed

[snopes]

An airline passenger died in the restroom during a flight and wasn't found until the cleaning crew boarded the plane after it landed, a federal lawsuit contends.

http://www.azcentral.com/offbeat/art...eath12-ON.html

[Roadie]

I wouldn't expect that someone who died in a locked bathroom would be found prior to the cleaning crews coming in. I don't get what warrants $150K in damages.

[snopes]

Originally Posted by Roadie

I wouldn't expect that someone who died in a locked bathroom would be found prior to the cleaning crews coming in. I don't get what warrants $150K in damages.

What's not to get? A man is dead -- someone has to pay! Bad things don't just "happen"; they're always somebody's fault.

- snopes

[Roadie]

Originally Posted by snopes

What's not to get? A man is dead -- someone has to pay! Bad things don't just "happen"; they're always somebody's fault.

- snopes

Ah. Silly me, I thought natural deaths were...natural, I guess. Not due to anyone's negligence. That'll teach me. Now, I'd understand if he died from the food...

[snopes]

It is hard to imagine how the dead man's wife suffered $150,000 worth of damages because the discovery of her husband's body was delayed a couple of hours.

"How could you lose a passenger?" Watts, who did not fly with her husband that day, told The Indianapolis Star.

But they didn't "lose" him. He didn't disembark from the plane (for obvious reasons), so they had to go find him.

- snopes

[Dr. Dave]

I found this statement odd:

"How could you lose a passenger?" Watts, who did not fly with her husband that day, told The Indianapolis Star. "If I was somewhere on that plane, I would hope someone would notice."

{ETA: Sorta' spanked by the birthday boy!}

It's an airplane, not a school bus. You get on, they check your ticket, and that's it. They do not do a head count at the end as people are getting off. I suppose if I had been sitting there, I may have thought "What happenned to that Japanese guy who was sitting next to the window?" but in truth I may have just shrugged my shoulders and figured he moved to sit with a friend. In this post-9/11 era, I might have alerted the staff if a bag had been left, but either way, it would not be the airline's fault if I had just shrugged and left.

No blame to the airline, but I'm curious that no one complained that one bathroom was locked for more than a few minutes.

[snopes]

It's an airplane, not a school bus. You get on, they check your ticket, and that's it. They do not do a head count at the end as people are getting off.

All true, although I'm kind of surprised that in this post-9/11 world of showy, overzealous security, airlines aren't required to verify that the number (and identities) of people who board a plane match those who get off it.

- snopes

Originally Posted by snopes

All true, although I'm kind of surprised that in this post-9/11 world of showy, overzealous security, airlines aren't required to verify that the number (and identities) of people who board a plane match those who get off it.

- snopes

GREAT, just FREAKIN' GREAT.

At least we know who to blame when they start doing this....SNOPES!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I guess they figure if people get on the plane, they're going to either stay on the plane, or their exit/attempted exit would be so dramatic it would be impossible not to notice (like trying to open the emergency door or something). Though I can see how it would be handy to verify it.

I don't see the damage, though. If they'd left him on the plane for days or something, and there had been other flights since that one where nobody noticed, that would be a problem.

[Troodon]

When I was 7, my family was on a plane from New York City to Dallas. I got motion-sick during the landing and father and I were in the airplane's bathroom while everyone else was disembarking. He and I ended up being locked in the plane. We were rescued when the rest of my family and the guy who was meeting us couldn't find us anywhere and told the airport people.

[snopes]

I guess they figure if people get on the plane, they're going to either stay on the plane, or their exit/attempted exit would be so dramatic it would be impossible not to notice (like trying to open the emergency door or something).

But not all flights are direct. What about a passenger who is ticketed to a particular "downstream" destination but gets off the plane at an earlier stop? I don't think there's currently any systematic mechanism in place to track such people.

- snopes

[Kallah]

But not all flights are direct. What about a passenger who is ticketed to a particular "downstream" destination but gets off the plane at an earlier stop? I don't think there's currently any systematic mechanism in place to track such people.

The last time I had a non-direct flight, something similar happened to me. On the first (of two) flights in my journey I was in a smaller aircraft that had a 1/aisle/2 split for the seating. I arrived early, waited patiently in line, and politely asked if I could be moved from my (randomly?) assigned seat that was on the 2 side to one that was on the 1 side. The lady at the desk was happy to help: my boarding pass was changed, and few hours later we took off with no troubles. It might be relevant to note that this was only three days after the whole ‘Zomg Terrorists! No Liquids!’ news broke.

When we landed for the layover I looked at my papers and noticed that the second pass had me in the middle seat of a 2/aisle/3 seat split. After we disembarked, I asked the lady at the gate counter if I could have my seat changed. She did some magic on her computer, found an empty window seat in the last row (the whole last row was empty, actually) and said she would change it for me. The computer didn’t want to spit out a new boarding pass for me, though, so she wrote the new seating assignment on my current one and said I should be fine. I wandered off to find something to drink, since they wouldn’t let me have bottled water on the flight, and came back in plenty of time for boarding. When I made my way up the line to the fellow at the gate, who had the boarding pass reader, mine wouldn’t scan. He noted the writing, the initials, and told me to take my new seat. So that’s what I did.

Well, a good half hour goes by, and the plane hasn’t moved away from the gate (I’d been one of the last folks to get on) - I was just starting to wonder if something was up when I noticed, up the aisle, someone was looking into each row. It turns out I was flagged as not having gotten back on the plane since my pass didn’t go through the scanner, but my checked luggage was, and that set off some major red flags. The poor manager (or whoever) looked half panicked by the time he got to the last row, and almost pleadingly asked ‘Are you Ms. Firstname Lastname?’ I told him that I just so happened to be her, and asked if I had done something wrong. Much boarding-pass checking ensued (and I continued to apologize, despite being told it wasn’t my fault), and once it was cleared off we kicked back from the gate. The nightmare story of going though Canadian Customs & Immigration when I landed at my final stop makes this one seem short, so I’ll spare you all.

If they were willing to hold up the flight for that long over one semi-misplaced passenger, I imagine there’s a system in place for people intentionally not getting back on the plane.

[geminilee]

That was because you had luggage on the plane, and that must be matched to a passenger. No checked luggage, no problem.

[rhiandmoi]

When I fly the flight attendants go through the plane before landing and make sure everyone is in their seats, has their tray tables up, and their seatbelts fastened. They also knock on the lavatory doors to tell people that times up and they need to get back to their seats. Someone should have noticed that the "Occupied" light was lit during the "get ready for landing" walkthrough. I would guess that the lawsuit probably puts forward that had the flight attendants noticed that the lavatory was occupied the man might not have died since he could have at least received medical attention immediately upon landing.

[rhiandmoi]

Originally Posted by snopes

But not all flights are direct. What about a passenger who is ticketed to a particular "downstream" destination but gets off the plane at an earlier stop? I don't think there's currently any systematic mechanism in place to track such people.

- snopes

Every multi-legged flight I have been on, each flight has its own boarding pass, even if planes aren't changed. You hand your next boarding pass to the flight attendant and stay in your seat.

Originally Posted by geminilee

That was because you had luggage on the plane, and that must be matched to a passenger. No checked luggage, no problem.

And in this post-9/11, suicide-bomber world, it's based on assumptions that are no longer valid (specifically, that if one wanted to blow up a plane, they'd rather not be on said plane while they're doing it).

-Tim