TikTok flight attendant reveals what happens if a person dies on a plane

A flight attendant on TikTok has explained exactly what happens if someone dies on a plane – and people were quick to react.

A flight attendant on TikTok has explained what happens if someone dies on a plane – and passengers may find themselves sitting next to them.

If there is no room elsewhere on the plane, this means the deceased passenger may not be moved until the flight lands.

TikTok user Sheena Marie, who works as a flight attendant, explained what happens first.

“If they have a heart attack and die, and there is nothing we can do about it, and we can’t start CPR, we are just going to wait until we get to our final destination,” she said.

“We are going to keep that dead body where it is at.”

She did add that if there is enough room on the plane, such as a whole back row being free, then the body could be moved there and “covered with a blanket”.

Passengers would then be let off the plane before medical professionals board to remove the body, and the plane taken out of service.

Family members of the dead passenger would also be contacted.

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The flight attendant revealed what happens when a passenger dies on a plane.

TikTok users were horrified, with one person saying: “If a person next to me on a plane dies and y’all try to leave them next to me I will literally jump out of the window.”

Another person agreed, adding: “Just know I’m sitting on someone’s lap if there are no more seats.”

One woman called Sue Jackman previously explained what happened when her husband passed away on a long-haul Air New Zealand flight between Los Angeles and Auckland.

She said: “We were in business class and he went to sleep in a lie flat sleeper seat and did not wake up.

“When he would not wake up, I got a flight steward who then went and fetched a passenger who was a doctor.

“He performed the usual signs of life tests and declared him deceased approximately four hours prior to landing.

“He stayed in his sleeper seats covered with a blanket for the rest of the journey and I lay beside him and held him until we landed.”

This is what happens when someone dies on a plane.

There is also a name for dead bodies on a plane – Jim Wilson.

According to Sara Marsden, editor-in-chief for US Funerals Online, American Airlines even has a dedicated help desk for funeral homes that they call the American Airlines Jim Wilson Service.

The nickname allows transport services or undertakers to call about a dead body without anyone overhearing, and the name comes from the crates that are used to transport the bodies.

The Alcor 1997 Stabilisation and Transport Manual explains that Jim Wilson Trays are often used as the shipping container and are packed with ice to preserve the human remains.

Other airlines simply call the dead bodies HR, an abbreviation for human remains.

In 2016, a dead woman was laid out on the aisle of a busy plane packed with tourists flying home from Turkey.

She was said to have died just 45 minutes into the three-and-a-half hour flight from the resort of Antalya to Moscow, Russia.

In 2019, horrified plane passengers were grounded with a dead body for two hours after staff brought the wrong-sized steps for paramedics to get on board.

Airport sources said there was a “comedy of errors” as paramedics were forced to crawl on to the Air New Zealand plane bound for Hong Kong, which was diverted to Australia.

This article originally appeared on The Sun and has been republished with permission