I assume it’s the same as the first aid advice to not stop resuscitation efforts until a doctor has had a look. A non-medical person is probably not qualified to state a person is dead unless it’s really really obvious. And the last thing you want is to find out that you gave up on a person a bit too early. So, at the least - do no harm.
In all those movies, don’t they ask “is there a doctor on board?”
I can tell you that they really do call for a doctor on board airline flights.
Yeah, I worked in a funeral home in Oakland once, and several times I was assigned to drive bodies across the bay to SFO. Actually, as I recall, I believe I took them to some kind of special transport company, not directly to the airport.
I think even the TSA has requirements for treating the dead with respect. There’s a stiff penalty involved.
No, sorry, I didn’t mean at the passenger terminal, the two times I saw a casket being loaded and unloaded, they taxied the plane to the end of the building away from places a passenger might see.
Again, this was pre 911 so I wouldn’t be surprised if procedures changed since then
Great-Aunt Mehetabel died while visiting relatives on the other coast. Just before the funeral,the family had the casket opened for a private viewing, and to their surprise found a four-star admiral in full dress uniform. Making the best of a bad situation, the family buried the admiral, in the hope that Great-Aunt Mehetabel would receive a twenty-one gun salute…
Are you sure you haven’t confused that conversation with the final scene from Midnight Cowboy?
I see what you did there.
Only if it’s all dead.
When I worked for the mortuary in the late 90’s, we’d take the casket (sometimes a simple wooden box) to a location about a mile away from the airport. It was taken directly from our van with a forklift and we’d sign some paperwork to confirm the transfer. According to my friend, who’d been doing this for years, they transported the casket in another van to the plane. Sometimes, if the flight was delayed, we’d have to return and pick up the casket after a certain amount of time had passed.
This was pre 9/11, so the morticians would certify that only the deceased was in the casket or box. The caskets that were used had locks. I don’t remember if here were tape seals also or not.
Need answer fast?
Little off topic but…I was a truck driver before retirement and was once told by dispatch when loading a load of frozen food to leave three feet of space at the back of the trailer. Then was sent to a funeral home to return another driver that had died on the job back home. It’s a cold hearted way to look at it but at that point you’re just freight.
So, does TSA make the deceased take off their shoes?