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Airlines to tackle medical crises

DNA Correspondent
Saturday, November 11, 2006  23:42 IST

Officials chalk out SOPs for mid-flight medical emergencies

Frequent mid-flight medical emergencies in the recent past, including the latest ones on Wednesday and Friday, have prompted foreign and Indian airlines to arrive at a consensus to evolve a standard operating procedure (SOP) whenever such emergencies arise in future.

A meeting of airline officials held on Friday resolved to chalk out a policy on the SOP during medical emergencies. The meeting was preceded on Wednesday when Air India (flight 127) scheduled for take off at 10.30am was recalled from the runway when a passenger Giri Rajan Aiyer complained of uneasiness.

An airline official told DNA: “The plane was readying for take off when the stewardess was informed about Aiyer’s condition. The information was communicated to the commander of the plane who immediately decided to abort the flight and turned back for the parking bay where the passenger was de-boarded and placed in am ambulance for transportation to a medical facility.”

He added that recent events had sensitised the airline to formulate a clear plan to handle such medical emergencies. On Saturday last, a British Airways and Air India flight landed in Mumbai with a passenger each who had passed away following a medical emergency on their respective flights (reported in DNA on Sunday).

R Sharma (78) and Panna Marfatia (58) on flights into Mumbai from Durban and London respectively, died of cardiac arrest on board. Following issues about the insensitive handling Marfatia’s dead body by the British Airways personnel and a lack of communication with the relatives of the deceased, the Friday meeting resolved to frame a policy to benchmark expectations from airline personnel in such future instances.