On July 13, Turkish Airlines flight 79 was flying from Istanbul to San Francisco when a passenger suffered a severe medical emergency. This happened over Greenland and while diverting to Iceland was an option and being prepared for, the passenger, unfortunately, died.
A Passenger Died Mid-Flight – But, Where is the Body Now?
At that point, they decided to continue towards the US and ultimately diverted to Chicago O’Hare. The problem now is that a spokesperson for the medical examiner’s office says that they have no record of this passenger or any thing matching the details of this situation. A station manager for Turkish Airlines in San Francisco, according to the new’s story, would only say that the passengers had been put on another flight for San Francisco.
The Playback Flight record of TK79
According to several news’ sites, they have made repeated requests of Turkish Airlines for information regarding what happened to the body of the passenger but no response has been coming. This is obviously a strange situation though it could be something as simple as the information being logged incorrectly in the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office (a problem which should certainly be fixed if so) or it could be something even stranger where the body is actually missing.
There are standards and protocols in place for something like this, as rare as it actually is. First, for the passenger to be officially declared dead, it must be done by a medical professional. If one was not present on the plane, then it would be the responsibility of the responding medical crews to handle this. There would have had to be a death certificate issued and if the passenger was traveling on a foreign passport, that country’s consul in Chicago would have been notified.
So, if protocols were all followed, there would be a trail of breadcrumbs to follow if the body is indeed missing. But, if something got messed up and the protocols were not followed, I would imagine that there would be some idea of where the deceased is now since it has been over a week since the passing.
For the sake of the family of the deceased, I hope that the situation is resolved quickly as it has now been over 10 days since this happened.
