Ian P. Driscoll

A neighbour, a New jersey native, has just returned from Disneyworld. She is recovering from various encounters with her less gastronomically picky countrymen. ” I couldn’t believe it, they were huge,” she exclaimed. “Some even had to use oxygen to get around the place.”

Whole foods. A woman walks past, the skin on her face so taut that she appears to have spent a fortnight in a jet propulsion lab, facing down a 600-knot headwind. My daughter looked up as this apparition passed us. “What’s that, Daddy?” she enquired.

And so yet another victim of plastic surgery steadily made her way to the organic edamame, unaware that her nip-and-tuck had turned her into a parody.

New Jersey Monthly, that reliable source of all things pertaining to the state, has again released its annual ranking of the 100 best places to live. And, once again, West Orange has failed to make it into the top 100.

West Orange reminds me of school cross country runs. Instead of bothering to compete with the front runners, there was always a small herd that eventually slowed to a walk, pulled out cigarettes, lit up, and then walked home at a leisurely pace. What was the point in competing if you couldn’t even run? Better to bask in the joys of mediocrity.

Ice is hanging from the trees. The middle classes have deserted Whole Foods for their saunas. Our trolley slips along the aisles in uninterrupted bliss.

Posted below is a piece I wrote about dead airline passengers. It appeared in the Toronto Star and elsewhere.

The Other Mile-High Club

“It was bloody cold; we got in late,” recalls my sister of her New York - London flight forced to divert to Newfoundland following a passenger’s heart attack. Doctors treated the unfortunate traveller and removed him from the plane which, after being de-iced and refuelled, continued to London. Later, before landing at Heathrow, the pilot reassured the passengers that the man was alive, on the road to recovery, and relaxing in his temporary Canadian surroundings. But what if he had simply died?

Apocryphal tales abound as to what exactly airlines do with the unlucky individual who expires just as everyone else is tucking into the salmon and noodles. One story is that in economy class on 747s the corpse is reputedly lodged behind those passengers seated in row 59, seats D through H (as if they aren’t already suffering enough). Another is that when the movies are playing and the cabin lights dimmed, the body is dragged to the nearest toilet where it remains behind a door marked “out of order.”

But when your fully loaded 777 is six hours out of Singapore, headed for Amsterdam or New York, and carrying 340 other, very alive passengers in no mood to divert to Tashkent or Tokyo, what really happens to the freshly dead?

Initially it’s difficult to determine, because if there is one issue besides crashes that airlines are anxious to avoid, it’s in-flight death. A spokeswoman for United Airlines refused to be drawn into the discussion. “We’re not going to comment, we don’t make any statements. We can’t speculate on what would actually transpire.”

Still, “some 1000 more air travellers die in-flight annually than are killed in crashes,” according to Karrol Fahn, a physician at the Aviation Health Institute, writing in Britain’s Daily Telegraph, making it an issue that needs to be addressed.

“It’s not something the airline would want to get into,” cautioned another major American carrier’s spokesman, “but we would probably just leave the passenger in his seat and cover him with a blanket; it would be less disturbing than trying to relocate him to the galley.” Less disturbing for whom?

The plane is 100 percent full, six long hours from its destination. And what if the dead passenger occupies a window seat? While we all may have one friend willing to grapple with a body for a glimpse of the Himalayas on a clear February morning, most wouldn’t be up to the task. And so the airline’s spokesman offered a more personal assessment: “I’m not sure what we would do. You can’t exactly cover the passenger in a blanket and push him out of the window. “

Instead he suggested talking with the Air Transport Association (ATA) or the Federal Aviation Association (FAA) to see if there were any established industry-wide protocols.

“I understand it’s up to the individual airline,” says the FAA’s Paul Takemoto.

“I’m not aware of any industry-wide standard operating procedures (SOPs),” added an intrigued information officer at the ATA, the body that represents the major American airlines, “but I believe that it’s handled differently by every airline, and it’s the decision of the pilot.”

“Well, I wouldn’t welcome them into the cockpit,” remarks Mal MacDougall, a British pilot whose only experience of passenger death was a woman who unwisely expired while the aircraft was still on the ground in Malta. “But the main guiding point is minimum distress to other passengers. If the flight was full I might sit them on a cabin staff’s seat, but you would have to strap them in. The last thing you would want is for the body to be rollicking around.”

Recalling the dead woman’s husband’s despair, MacDougall also advises anyone anticipating dying on vacation to do so only on the plane home, and after take-off. “He wanted us to fly back with her in the seat; he knew exactly how expensive it would be to bring her back as cargo.” MacDougall is right. While United Airlines’ Human Remains Shipping Department quote a competitive $3.59 per pound for a body and casket on the New York – London run (plus a $10 airway bill and $30 fuel surcharge), they add that it would have to be booked through a funeral home. And there’s the rub.

A former Singapore Airlines pilot favours a more salubrious option: the crew’s sleeping quarters. On 747-400s these are a series of beds located above the rear galley, reached by a short staircase. Of course the pilot’s generosity probably stems from his Singapore Airlines background. Renowned for impeccable service, it’s one of few airlines whose flight attendants may, for fear of disturbing someone, fail to realise a passenger is dead.

But a one-time British Airways senior steward, a veteran in these matters, disagrees. Transferring a body to the back, he warns, is arduous enough, let alone bouncing it up stairs. “The weight was atrocious,” he recalls of the man he and other cabin staff struggled to move to empty seats at the back of a trans-Atlantic flight. Still, his work wasn’t complete. Secured and covered with a blanket, the body soon attracted the attention of passengers using the rear toilets, and for whom the excuse “he’s just sleeping” would not suffice.

Now, it seems, British Airways strives to avoid both of these problems. “Suitably stoic in its approach to such matters,” says a current employee, the airline “has a ‘deal with it on the day attitude’ and usually encourages leaving a dead person in his seat, covered with a blanket.” There is, however, an appropriately eccentric addition to the BA approach, confides the employee. “We are told to talk to the body, pretending it’s still alive: ‘Ah, Mr. Jones, you’re still sleeping, no need for that third gin-and-tonic.’ Something like that.”

Given how long it takes to navigate a drinks trolley through the midnight sprawl of arms and legs in economy class, it’s not surprising that many airlines prefer their employees avoid lifting another set of limbs through the melee. But none has the given the issue the attention that Air New Zealand has.

Geographic fate has decreed that the Antipodean airline fly ultra-long-haul routes. Combine that with the propensity the country’s elder citizens exhibit for embarking on long journeys to Europe and America, and an accompanying disregard for the impact such flights may have on their health, the airline was destined to become an industry leader in on-board death management.

According to a 1999 article in the Flight Safety Foundation’s journal, Cabin Crew Safety, Air New Zealand in 1996 published a report ‘on the development of an on-board mortality kit, related SOPs and training for flight attendants.’

The article records that Air New Zealand’s standard operating procedures “instruct the cabin crew that if it is necessary to move the body, it should be discretely removed ‘to the area of eventual stowage with the use of the aircraft wheelchair [and an] oxygen mask…kept on the [dead passenger’s face] for transit to the rear of the cabin.’ The wheelchair is moved backward down the aisle to minimize visibility of the deceased passenger to other passengers.” So, if six hours into your Los Angeles to Auckland flight you spot someone resembling an F-16 fighter pilot being wheeled through the cabin, it’s possible a window seat has freed up.

But there is also considerable science behind the Air New Zealand approach: cabin crew are “taught that ‘a passenger seat is the best place to [stow] a body, [because a seat] is one of the few places that is certified to contain mass in the cabin’.” Culture and efficiency play their parts too. An airline health and safety officer is quoted: “’Our policy has been that we would not stow a body in any crew quarters for reasons of access after arrival and respect for the cultural values of aircraft members.’”

Where that leaves a dead passenger on a fully loaded fourteen-hour Air New Zealand flight remains unclear. But under less crowded circumstances, the airline maintains “’ a list of preferred positions in the aircraft – the most preferred position being one set of seats that can be curtained off for privacy.’”

The highlight of Air New Zealand’s preparation, however, is the mortality kit. The contents are again thoughtfully outlined in Cabin Crew Safety: “ a directory on outstation requirements for the importation of a body; printed forms for documenting and reporting an in-flight death to local authorities; two disposable paper coats; two pairs of disposable latex gloves (medium size and large size); two plastic aprons; one deoderant spray; one body bag with a zipper; and one incontinence sheet (absorbent pad for lining the body bag).”

But if you can’t bear the thought of Granny in a Ziploc, don’t despair. The body bag remains a last-resort option, and up until the July 1999 publication of Cabin Crew Safety, none had been used; not because people hadn’t died, but because the deaths had occurred just before the end of a flight or during a diversion. (Unfortunately, Air New Zealand was unable to confirm the number of body bags utilised since then.) And to put your mind at ease, the article contains some final comforting words from the health and safety officer: “’On very long flights, we’ve needed – for public hygiene – to have the ability to contain a body fairly well; that is when the body bag might be used…Our protocol is that we would not zip up the body bag; these measures would be taken reasonably tastefully.’”

Still, one of the easiest ways of dealing with the problem is to prevent those likely to die in flight from boarding the plane in the first place. “A lot of people try to get on in places like Toronto because they want to come home to die,” says a Cathay Pacific pilot of ill-appearing elderly Chinese passengers determined to return to Hong Kong. “And the ground staff try to catch them at the gate.”

Dr. Kahn’s Daily Telegraph article alludes to this underlying phenomenon: ‘An IATA study of in-flight deaths on 42 carriers over six years found 56 percent were due to cardiac problems, with 69 percent appearing healthy on departure,’ suggesting that over 30 percent should have been checking into the emergency ward, not trans-oceanic flights.

Yet whether it’s due to sick passengers outwitting the ground staff; the airline allowing the dying onboard with medical assistance; or, simply, healthy passengers having an unlucky day, somewhere this afternoon a handful of passengers are due for a heavenly reunion with their maker.

Assuming the plane is full, then a slim majority of pilots elect for transferring the corpse to a cabin crew jump seat. And while that may render the lucky few able to stretch their legs in the opposite bulkhead seats a little nauseous, it’s probably the best compromise for everyone: away from the food, not occupying a precious window seat, and unlikely to tumble forward into the pilot’s lap just as he adjusts the trim. And having got them there, reminds a safety-conscious Delta captain, you should “Strap them in; strap them in good and tight for the landing.”

Dead or alive, the pilot wants everyone on the tarmac in one piece.

© Ian P. Driscoll

The events of the past few weeks have reconfirmed W’s status as idiot-in-chief. He has backed Gonzales to the hilt, continued to ignore the entreaties of wise men on the unceasing debacle that is Iraq, and smirked his way through his public duties. When will the majority of Americans realise just who this man is: the spoiled scion of a political dynasty, a draft-dodger, a man whose bravado is the only mask he can place over a third-rate mind.

Reuters today reported that a polar bear cub at Berlin Zoo had received a death threat. As if global warming wasn’t enough!

Governor Corzine’s altercation with a traffic barrier, while he was wearing no seatbelt and sitting next to a man driving at 91 mph, presented me with a wonderful opportunity to explain to my daughters the difference between intelligence and common sense. After all, anyone who ends up as co-CEO of Goldman Sachs is surely intelligent. On second thoughts though….

Still, the plutocrat will undoubtedly begin using a seatbelt when he leaves the hospital. He may even become the poster-boy for what happens to those who don’t. And hopefully his police escorts will finally have the balls to tell him to wear one, just as they do to the non-plutocrats among us.

Yesterday, Olivia had the following to offer: “You clean your teeth every day except the day you die. Or maybe not the day before you die. What colour do you turn when you die? Black or brown?”

Today I was looking through some old quotes of Olivia’s that I had taken time to write down. One of my favourites is: ” I’ll sit on the new couch because I’m new; you sit on the old couch because you’re old.”