Turkish Airlines Loses Corpse Of Passenger Who Died During Flight At Chicago O’Hare

It can be easy to wonder how multi-billion-dollar international airlines could constantly lose luggage. However, it seems like they could literally misplace anything given the opportunity. Turkish Airlines lost the body of a passenger who died onboard a flight earlier this month from Istanbul Airport to San Francisco International Airport. The flight’s Airbus A350 diverted to Chicago O’Hare International Airport before continuing to SFO, but the Windy City was the last publicly known location of the passenger’s corpse for nearly two weeks.

Turkish Airlines should have contacted local authorities about the death once the plane touched down in Chicago, but that doesn’t seem to have been the case. Despite spending an hour on the ground, the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office was not notified about the death, according to SFGate. The airline’s SFO station manager claims that the body was put on a later flight to San Francisco, but gave no further details. The San Mateo County Coroner’s Office announced on Thursday that it was an 83-year-old man from India who died on the July 13 flight, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. It’s unclear if the body was never removed from the plane or if Turkish Airlines moved the corpse without informing local authorities in Chicago.

This isn’t the first in-flight death for Turkish Airlines over the past year. The 59-year-old captain died while flying from Seattle to Istanbul last October. Four hours into the flight, the crew declared a medical emergency over the Canadian Arctic and diverted to New York. The airline stated that the pilot has no known health problems and passed a medical examination in March 2024.

While deaths during commercial flights are exceedingly rare, there are industry-wide procedures to deal with the emergency and minimize the psychological trauma dealt to the other passengers. Cabin crew are instructed to place a deceased passenger’s body into a bodybag zipped up to the neck and buckle them into a seat isolated from the rest of the passengers. If the flight is sold out, then they would be placed back into their seat as a last resort. Apparently, you get free drinks if you’re the unfortunate passenger seated next to a bodybag.