# Turkish Airlines pilot dies in flight **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 10, 2024, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turkish-airlines-pilot-dies-in-flight/1008632 "2024-10-10T15:31:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Spiderman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiderman/32/230_2.png) [@Spiderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiderman)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2024, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turkish-airlines-pilot-dies-in-flight/1008632/41 "2024-10-11T18:22:38Z")
> [@md-2000](#): > > Do the various airlines allow pilots to fly for another airline like that in a pinch? How specific are the type requirements, will any old A350 certification do? The airplane might be the same but the company’s internal policies & procedures might be different. ---
**Author:** ![Mark\_Finn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/34f0e0/32.png) [@Mark\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mark_Finn)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2024, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turkish-airlines-pilot-dies-in-flight/1008632/42 "2024-10-11T18:42:33Z")
From the flightradar24 map, do we know (1) at what point the pilot was discovered to be unconscious? (2) at what point was he declared deceased? (3) at what point was it decided to fly to JFK (that would have to be at some point before they turned south, since presumably they would have to give some kind of warning that they would be on the way). What do the dashed lines represent on the map? No contact? Flightaware shows no contact between Yellowknife (CEN9) at 00:11 and Iqaluit (VYFB) at 02:33. They had been flying directly south for two hours before being diverted to JFK at 04:34 by “Boston Center”. (arrival was at 05:57). [Flight Track Log ✈ THY204 08-Oct-2024 (KSEA-KJFK) - FlightAware](https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/THY204/history/20241009/0150Z/KSEA/KJFK/tracklog) Are flights not monitored for 100% of their routes? Or are there areas where it’s impossible, but planes fly there anyways? ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2024, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turkish-airlines-pilot-dies-in-flight/1008632/43 "2024-10-11T19:54:48Z")
> [@Kent\_Clark](#): > > IIRC Airbus planes don’t have the same fuel dump capabilities that Boeing planes have. Fuel dumping is mostly a thing of the past. It’s required by regulation for airplanes that cannot safely make a go-around at max takeoff weight with some specified combination of engine(s) out. Which standards of course vary whether you have 2, 3, 4, or more engines. Airplanes that can go-around with that specified worst-case set of engine(s) out have no requirement for dumping capability. The modern big twins all are massively overpowered versus their single engine go-around needs. So dumping capability is simply unnecessary. And therefore not offered by the manufacturer. Some older twin designs had it as an option that some airlines opted for out of a traditional mindset even when it wasn’t required. Back when I flew 767s, about half our fleet had it, half didn’t. The airplanes were all otherwise identical. It all depended on when they were originally ordered from the factory for which original customer. All airplanes are certificated to land safely at the maximum possible takeoff weight. They’re not designed to do it routinely, so there is a lower max landing weight limit that’s used for normal operations. But landing at max takeoff weight is fully safe unless you really prang it onto the runway or need to use a very short runway for some contrived reason. The only good reason to burn off fuel is if you can’t safely or legally proceed to an airport with a decently long runway. But if you have a requirement for your situation to land ASAP (which also implies “right nearby”), then you don’t have time to burn (or dump) an appreciable amount of fuel anyhow. Bottom line: fuel dumping was a huge issue in prop airliners and the 3- and 4-engine jets. Not anymore. > [@md-2000](#): > > Do the various airlines allow pilots to fly for another airline like that in a pinch? How specific are the type requirements, will any old A350 certification do? OTOH, if anywhere is going to have a spare Turkish Airlines pilot, it would be JFK. I imagine if they grabbed someone currently on layover at JFK, they would already be sending a replacement for the replacement on the next plane out of Istanbul (not Constantinople…) if they have anything on the ball. Pilots are not interchangeable between airlines. The regulators would have a cow over that. But the rest of your surmise is correct. There’s some Turkish crew laying over at JFK that would be pressed into service to keep this flight moving. After some random amount of delay depending on rest requirements, reaction times, etc. Meanwhile more replacement crew would be sent from wherever Turkish keeps crewfolks to backfill the newly created holes. > [@Spiderman](#): > > The airplane might be the same but the company’s internal policies & procedures might be different. 'Zactly. The airplanes are subtly different too. I used to ride in the cockpit on Southwest’s 737s regularly. I didn’t work for Southwest, but I did fly the same models of 737s. I often commented that those two guys could fly one of my company’s jets with only mild confusion. And I and one of my co-workers could fly one of their jets with that same sort of mild confusion. It’d be ugly in spots but we’d git’r’done. OTH, if you put one of us and one of SW’s pilots in the same cockpit in either kind of airplane total confusion would reign from end to end. It’d be a shambles. Neither company’s sets of procedures, habits, techniques, and communication standards are objectively materially better. They’re just different. Largely for traditional reasons based on slowly evolving backwards compatibility to the origins of the company. There simply isn’t time while in motion to hammer out the differences between two different ways to fly the jet and manage the coordination & equipment. _Ad lib_ simply does not work well enough fast enough. If you’re not both reading from the same spot in the same script all the time, stuff’s gonna get bent. Which is why FAA and other national regulators allows swapping neither crews nor jets. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2024, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turkish-airlines-pilot-dies-in-flight/1008632/44 "2024-10-11T19:58:21Z")
I wonder if that MD-11 Swiss flight in the 1990s had something to do with fuel-dumping no longer being protocol. The pilots wasted precious minutes of time with a burning airplane, dumping fuel, and ran out of time. ---
**Author:** ![Al128](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/al128/32/16541_2.png) [@Al128](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Al128)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2024, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turkish-airlines-pilot-dies-in-flight/1008632/45 "2024-10-12T01:36:01Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > So, they don’t put dead bodies in the overhead storage area They used to… But people complained about the dripping and leakage from above … Today’s best practise and is to keep em fresh and on the outside… The British one where trailblazers here. [https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.news.com.au%2Ftravel%2Ftravel-updates%2Fincidents%2Fbritish-airways-pilot-saved-from-being-sucked-out-of-plane%2Fnews-story%2F9e702c626df361410b2062634669000f&psig=AOvVaw18WTMJAzzO7j6fdW9Kjid4&ust=1728783121321000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBQQjRxqFwoTCJiRsZrZh4kDFQAAAAAdAAAAABAR](https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.news.com.au%2Ftravel%2Ftravel-updates%2Fincidents%2Fbritish-airways-pilot-saved-from-being-sucked-out-of-plane%2Fnews-story%2F9e702c626df361410b2062634669000f&psig=AOvVaw18WTMJAzzO7j6fdW9Kjid4&ust=1728783121321000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBQQjRxqFwoTCJiRsZrZh4kDFQAAAAAdAAAAABAR) ---
**Author:** ![Heracles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heracles/32/487_2.png) [@Heracles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heracles)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2024, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turkish-airlines-pilot-dies-in-flight/1008632/46 "2024-10-13T00:14:46Z")
Iqaluit (CYFB) has a sizeable runway, large enough to receive regular jet service from other Canadian cities. It’s said locally that the airport was a designated space shuttle alternate landing site at some point, presumably for those polar flights out of Vandenberg that never happened; I don’t know if it’s true. My sister-in-law lived in Iqaluit for a couple of years in the 1990s, she traveled from Montréal by a scheduled Air Inuit Boeing 727 (!!), and she met some people using CYFB as a base for cold-weather testing on the (then-new) Boeing 777. The [Wikipedia page](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iqaluit_Airport) shows an Airbus 380 at the airport during _its_ cold-weather testing in 2006. But it also mentions that there’s only one FBO, and that the customs service (not relevant to routine Canadian flights) only serves planes with fewer than 15 passengers. So yes, sufficient runway, but not what you’d call an international airport. ---
**Author:** ![KCB615](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ea666f/32.png) [@KCB615](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KCB615)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2024, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turkish-airlines-pilot-dies-in-flight/1008632/47 "2024-10-13T01:30:57Z")
SwissAir 111’s delay was due to the crew trying to diagnose the problem rather than putting the plane on the ground. The checklist for “odor of smoke” at the time was something along the lines of “turn off left air conditioning pack, see if odor goes away.” If not, turn off the right air conditioning pack and see if that works. No? Shut down the next thing on the list and see if that’s it. In the meantime, you’ve lost 12 minutes of the 17 you statistically have before the plane becomes un-flyable. After SwissAir, and even more so after UPS 1307 (a DC-8 that landed on fire in Philly in 2006), most airlines reevaluated their in flight fire procedures to get the plane on the ground at the closest suitable airport (which UPS categorized as “any paved runway longer than 5000 feet”) at the first sign of a fire. Marginally back to the OP… I have done CPR on 7 cardiac arrest victims onboard aircraft, all on the ground. Some were in-flight cardiac arrests that returned to the airport (or were close to their regularly scheduled landing) or were an emergency divert. Three happened at the gate while the plane was boarding. Never got a single one back. Nothing says fun and exciting like working a code on an aircraft. The helpful comments from passengers were always, um, entertaining. The last thing I wanted to hear while dragging a 350-pound dead person off of a CRJ900 is someone imploring me to put the guy out the over wing exit. Please, just stop talking. My record for cardiac arrest saves inside the terminal, however, was 8 out of 11. Bystander CPR and early access to AEDs is legit. If the crew member was legitimately down while over the arctic, it doesn’t matter where they landed - the outcome for the crew member was going to be the same either way. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2024, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turkish-airlines-pilot-dies-in-flight/1008632/48 "2024-10-13T01:42:33Z")
They get visiting specialists two to four times a YEAR! Even American critical access hospitals have more specialist staffing than that, and I was surprised they did OB, although it looks like they don’t hesitate to send patients out when it’s warranted. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2024, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turkish-airlines-pilot-dies-in-flight/1008632/49 "2024-10-13T01:43:51Z")
It also sounds like, in most cases, it’s basically a triage center, and for non-emergency treatment, they’re going to send them to a bigger city. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2024, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turkish-airlines-pilot-dies-in-flight/1008632/50 "2024-10-13T01:51:16Z")
And here’s a map of the Great Circle route, SEA-IST. > **[Great Circle Map](https://www.greatcirclemap.com/?routes=sea-ist)** > > Great Circle Map displays the shortest > route between airports and calculates the distance. It draws geodesic flight > paths on top of Google maps, so you can create your own route map. p.s. Using a defibrillator, and/or doing CPR, when it’s not appropriate can also kill a person who might not otherwise have died. ---
**Author:** ![abcdefghij](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/43a26b/32.png) [@abcdefghij](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/abcdefghij)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2024, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turkish-airlines-pilot-dies-in-flight/1008632/51 "2024-10-13T04:18:41Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > p.s. Using a defibrillator, and/or doing CPR, when it’s not appropriate can also kill a person who might not otherwise have died. I just took CPR refresher training a week ago. The American Heart Association training material made a point of saying that neither of these is true. If the heart isn’t fibrillating, the AED won’t deliver a shock and, while CPR does often break ribs, it won’t stop a heart from beating. ---
**Author:** ![BippityBoppityBoo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bippityboppityboo/32/5745_2.png) [@BippityBoppityBoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BippityBoppityBoo)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2024, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turkish-airlines-pilot-dies-in-flight/1008632/52 "2024-10-13T04:51:23Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > It also sounds like, in most cases, it’s basically a triage center Did you read the cite posted by @DavidNRockies? It is 24 bed treatment center for addictions and alcoholism. The trauma treated is the cultural and generational trauma originating with native children being placed in residential school in centuries past. > **[A new centre in Nunavut to treat trauma and addictions](https://polarjournal.ch/en/2023/08/24/a-new-centre-in-nunavut-to-treat-trauma-and-addictions/)** > > Nunavut breaks ground on new trauma and addiction treatment centre. Located in Iqaluit and designed by Inuit, it will provide therapies based on Inuit culture. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2024, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turkish-airlines-pilot-dies-in-flight/1008632/53 "2024-10-13T11:51:53Z")
The center/centre that @DavidNRockies found is not the Iqaluit hospital. _This_ is the Iqaluit hospital: **[Qikiqtani General Hospital | Government of Nunavut](https://www.gov.nu.ca/en/health/qikiqtani-general-hospital)** and > **[Qikiqtani General Hospital](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qikiqtani_General_Hospital)** > > Qikiqtani General Hospital (QGH) is a 35-bed acute care hospital in the Nunavut territorial capital of Iqaluit on Baffin Island. It is also the sole hospital in the territory. The first hospital, the Baffin Regional Hospital, was constructed in 1962, and a new hospital, the Qikiqtani General Hospital replaced the older one in 2007. By 2013, it had four birthing rooms, and two operating rooms. > The hospital underwent major renovations that were completed in 2016. The QGH East Wing, now houses out... I include the wiki cite because the website for the hospital itself is part of the Nunavut Government’s web presence and seems a bit flaky here on Sunday morning. It seems the antennalopes have migrated to the wrong part of the Arctic wastes and my signals are not getting through from Florida right now. You all might have better luck at another time from another place. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![DavidNRockies](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidnrockies/32/6279_2.png) [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2024, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turkish-airlines-pilot-dies-in-flight/1008632/54 "2024-10-13T11:58:27Z")
FWIW … I knew what hospital I was referencing and what hospital I was _not_ referencing. It seemed the FQ had been well answered, so I was making a light-hearted reference to the fact that – unless it was a medical certainty that I wouldn’t make it to someplace like JFK – I’d rather not roll the dice in an extremely rural area “when _death_ is on the line!” 😉 ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2024, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turkish-airlines-pilot-dies-in-flight/1008632/55 "2024-10-13T12:19:05Z")
I expected you were making a joke, but it seems that whooshed a few folks. All good. 🤪 I agree w your larger point. Bringing a difficult medical case to a facility that’s unequipped for [whatever] is a decision to kill the patient. And the only thing that can take them out of there, your airplane, may well be immobilized due to legalities or maintenance, or the inability to get sufficient fuel for another 12 hours. Far better _on average_ to continue to head towards genuine civilization at jet speed. Which is why the procedures are written that way. > [@Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](#): > > They also said that the trip back would take longer, because we were on a US plane and couldn’t go through Cuban air space. That was probably quite a few years ago. Do you recall when? There certainly was a time that was true. I don’t know when that changed; it was long before I became a Pilot of the Caribbean, but a couple dozen US airliners are in Cuban airspace right now and are all day every day. Either going there to land, or just passing overhead on the way from wherever to someplace. In general Cuban ATC is very professional and well-equipped, one of the better ones in the Caribbean. They earn a hefty income from the overflight charges for each flight they handle. They’re eager to garner more traffic, not less. ---
**Author:** ![DavidNRockies](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidnrockies/32/6279_2.png) [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2024, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turkish-airlines-pilot-dies-in-flight/1008632/56 "2024-10-13T12:50:46Z")
Another data point – 2pp PDF: > **[TRISC-National-Trauma-Registry-Listing-2.pdf](https://www.traumacanada.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/TRISC-National-Trauma-Registry-Listing-2.pdf)** > > 80.13 KB Canada obviously has quite a few (medical) Trauma Centers, but – also rather obviously – they’re all pretty far South, near the centers of population. Which, I think, supports the idea that decisions like these can involve any number of variables beyond the purely medical … unless the medical is really incontrovertible. ---
**Author:** ![Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a88e4f/32.png) [@Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_is_the_new_Analog)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2024, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turkish-airlines-pilot-dies-in-flight/1008632/57 "2024-10-13T13:37:14Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > That was probably quite a few years ago. Do you recall when? According to my photo album, it was 2004. So quite a long time ago, in geo-political time. ---
**Author:** ![Heracles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heracles/32/487_2.png) [@Heracles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heracles)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2024, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turkish-airlines-pilot-dies-in-flight/1008632/58 "2024-10-13T14:43:39Z")
From that list, my takeaway is that, as usual, Québec’s health care system is a mess. We can’t even list with certainty the cities where our trauma centres are located, but we’re sure we have them _somewhere_. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2024, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turkish-airlines-pilot-dies-in-flight/1008632/59 "2024-10-13T20:31:12Z")
> [@Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](#): > > So quite a long time ago, in geo-political time. So during the Bush II administration. Makes sense. Thanks. I _think_ it was Obama starting in 2009 who backed off on all that “we hate Cuba and want to invade” noise for the probably more successful, if less noisy, policy of using capitalist trade to steamroll them into submission. ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2024, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turkish-airlines-pilot-dies-in-flight/1008632/60 "2024-10-13T21:32:03Z")
Interestingly, I can’t find a clear list on a government website, but the information is available via Google. There are three “Level 1” adult trauma centers in Quebec; the Montreal General (affiliated with McGill), Hôpital du Sacre-Coeur de Montréal (affiliated with Université de Montréal) and Hôpital de l’Enfant-Jesus in Québec City (affiliated with Université de Laval). I’m less certain overall for pediatrics, though I’ve found the Montreal Children’s Hospital, Sainte -Justine (Montreal) and the Centre Hospitalier universitaire de Québec (Québec City) are all level 1 pediatric trauma centers. This webpage explains Quebec’s categorization (and there’s a pdf with a table of required services for each category) but unless I missed it, there’s no obvious listing medical center and category. [https://www.msss.gouv.qc.ca/professionnels/soins-et-services/guide-urgences-categorisation-des-urgences/](https://www.msss.gouv.qc.ca/professionnels/soins-et-services/guide-urgences-categorisation-des-urgences/) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turkish-airlines-pilot-dies-in-flight/1008632.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turkish-airlines-pilot-dies-in-flight/1008632.md?page=4)