Epic Fail.

Unreal. Words cant even express, and to just think what would go through your mind after opening that casket to find your dead decomposing wife. Just absolutely horrible. Its amazing the disgust i have for AA and its workers right now.

wow. sue thier asses off man.

At least they dont discriminate. Dead or alive you are screwed flying with them.

Simply amazing. Epic fail doesn't come close to the screw up that this is.

Maybe they were just being green?

@B: No. Please stop.

Much will depend on the arrangements that the funeral home made. Much paper work is required to ship a dead body internationally. Were the papers in order? Did they pay for refrigeration? Does AA provide refrigeration? How do you refrigerate a casket in a baggage hold?

It's part of AA's pre-bankrupcy strategy, following the golden parachute planning.

Maybe TSA baggage handlers were going through her pockets.

Wouldn't put it past them.

He was given the run around for several days.

Exactly what does American Airlines think is a significant enough consumer complaint that actually deserves immediate and stellar service?

He obviously didn't pay the fee for decomposition protection. /sarcasm

Seriously though, there is no way that AA should have been able to lose a casket for 4 days. What did the baggage handlers think was inside? "Oh, it's ok to leave that casket unrefrigerated, because it's probably full of comic books."

Wasn't this the beginning of a bad movie with Billy Crystal?

@IfThenElvis: Even then, they LOST her for 4 days without any idea of where she was. For four days she was stuck in some hot cabin somewhere - I don't think it would have made too much of a difference if it was just the duration of the flight (I'm not expert on decomposition, so someone help me out here), but four days?

When my grandmother passed away, the funeral director took the body to the airport to be flown back to her home town. She missed her flight.

Somebody stayed with the casket until the next flight.
Granted, she was flying direct on her final flight, but what on earth happened? How could a casket be lost? It's not as if there are hundreds of oblong boxes sitting in unclaimed baggage!

My sympathies to the family. Good on them for filing a lawsuit.

I hope he takes them to the cleaners, no settlement, no mercy.

That's really egregious. Like Ninabi said, you'd think it would be pretty obvious that a COFFIN is not an ordinary piece of luggage, not to mention that an extraordinary level of care would seem to be called for in all such situations.

::static:: Failflight 245, you're cleared for landing on failway 2 ::static::

Sue them, sue them hard.

@IfThenElvis: I'll take "not enough information to select a correct answer". Customs problems? What's the average time to collect a body from air cargo? How long does a body have to be held on arrival? Can they cool it while it waits?

A better question would be "what could have been done differently, and what would have been the best possible outcome?" I mean obviously, this wasn't it, but what would the best case scenario have been?

As noted, AA probably doesn't offer refrigeration. My biggest questions are, why did he have her shipped to his house to open it up? Usually the funeral director has it sent to the funeral home. I'm not familiar with Ecuadorian customs, but I imagine they have undertakers there. Why wasn't the body embalmed before flight? It really should've been.

When we had to fly my brother up from FL to OH, he was embalmed and sent to the funeral home. I also can't imagine actual caskets are used for transporting bodies. I've yet to see one come out of the belly. Even if it's just a casket being shipped, it'll be crated up. I imagine there are plenty of sickos and other degenerates they have to put bodies in wooden crates.

If AA knew the contents of the box, they should have taken much better care of it. Hope this guy wins a few million... not that it'll make up for anything, but AA really needs to be taught a lesson...

@EyeHeartPie: I'm guessing it wasn't just a plain casket. I'm sure it was in another box.

Don't they embalm bodies before shipping?

Sue them. Make them go out of business. How perfect it would be for this to make that airline go under. No more government bailouts. Make the airlines realize they can't treat customers this way. Deceased, or alive.

Hey now, I'm sure AA is "taking this seriously"...

How awful. I feel so bad for him. Obviously no amount of money is worth this kind of treatment, but I still hope he takes them to the cleaners.

They don't always embalm bodies. Jews in particular do not embalm as a general practice, though we did have to embalm my stepmother because she passed away on a Friday and we couldn't get her flown back to Florida until Monday because the doctor hadn't signed her death certificate.

I think I would've let someone else open the casket. Who? I dunno - TSA? Just tell them that there's metal inside. Or a tube of toothpaste. *shudder*

I can't imagine opening it myself. Not after they lost it. What a cluster.

How does anyone actually expect to get their lost baggage back from AA when they can not even find a casket?

Wow, that really got to me. I sometimes get reminded of the reality of death when watching movies, or reading stories such as these. I always shudder to think of losing my wife or son during these moments of thought.

Reading what happened when he opened the casket, days later and after much decomposition, was almost too much. (I even turned my head away from the phone I was reading it on... That's a first)

Lawsuits and liabilities aside, I feel terrible for this poor man. What a truly heartbreaking story.

I'm wryly amused that even for this case of egregious wrong-doing, there are some that are defending American and/or blaming the victim. JEEzus.

@IfThenElvis:

Well I don't think refrigeration in-flight would be much of an issue given the temperatures at those altitudes. More than likely it was the 4 days it spent "lost" at some terminal where people didn't know "what's in that big box?".

This is as was said before more than an Epic Fail

@Elvisisdead: @IfThenElvis:

Thank you, we do need to know what role the first funeral home has in the mistake and if any of this was customs/another party's fault as well.

He should have gotten better service from the airline, but it may not be all on them.

This is a terrible thing, I feel horrible for the family involved and I can only hope that whoever is responsible gets the full screwing over legally for this.

@TakingItSeriously:
Cargo holds are pressurized and heated. As a baggage handler I said many reassuring words to caged kitties and doggies, and left the light on, before shutting the cargo door.

But as you said, it likely sat on the ground with those around not knowing "what's in that big box?" (I doubt it was shipped in an obvious casket.)

I wonder what arrangements the funeral home made as it is possible to expedite freight.

I am surprised that the body was not embalmed as it is very common in Latin America and the husband expected a traditional open casket funeral.

@IfThenElvis: I'm not sure that you have to refrigerate it... AFAIK, only parts of the baggage hold are temperature controlled (i.e. where they put live animals), and the rest just gets cold from altitude.

Oh.My.God. That is TERRIBLE. How do you lose a COFFIN?! Having worked at an airport, for a major airline, I know that it's nothing short of a miracle that an normal baggage makes it where it's supposed to be be... But a coffin?! How does that get misplaced?

It was probably packed in another box, sure, but it'd be pretty hard to lose a giant human-sized wooden crate. Assuming that this mishap didn't have something to do with customs, or the funeral home filling out the papers incorrectly, or something like that (it would be nice to get a little more background on the story), what probably happened is that it was shipped via cargo and the asshats in cargo put it on the wrong plane and then couldn't track it down. Sweet baby Jesus, that's horrific. Absolutely horrific.

One thing I don't get... Why did he open the box?! After his wife had been "lost" for four days, and obviously wasn't embalmed, why on God's green earth would he open the box?! *gag* I can't even think about it, it's too gross. To have to see his wife that way... *shudder*

The poor man. His poor family. If this really is AA's fault, I hope they win their suit 'cause they deserve to OWN American Airlines. And if it wasn't AA's fault (customs, funeral home, whoever), I hope they find out who was responsible and take 'em to the cleaners.

@IfThenElvis: Of course, my comment appears just below the one where you mention you're a baggage handler & that the entire hold is temperature controlled. Airline websites, when describing shipping live animals, imply that only a section is temperature controlled. I guess the do that to help justify the costs :)

Remind me never to fly Singapore Airlines. For some reason they are too well prepared for death-in-the-air.

[www.timesonline.co.uk]

The body of a woman in her seventies, who died after the plane left Delhi for Heathrow, was carried by cabin staff from economy to first class, where there was more space. Her body was propped up in a seat, using pillows.

The woman died during a nine-hour flight on a Boeing 747. Trinder was catching up on sleep when he was woken by a commotion and opened his eyes to see staff manoeuvring the body into a seat.

"I didn't have a clue what was going on. The stewards just plonked the body down without saying a thing. I remember looking at this frail, sparrow-like woman and thinking she was very ill," said Trinder.

"She kept slipping under the seatbelt and moving about with the motion of the plane. When I asked what was going on I was shocked to hear she was dead."

Other carriers use different procedures. Singapore Airlines has introduced "corpse cupboards" on its Airbus 340-500 aircraft.

@Trai_Dep: I don't think anyone is blaming the victim or making excuses for AA.

When people are asking why the OP opened the casket, and had it delivered to his house, I think that's a pretty valid question-- even if the body hadn't been lost, she would have been deceased for a few days by the time they got her all the way to Ecuador. If she wasn't in a fridge the entire time, she was going to be funky when she got there, with or without a delay.

And when people are asking for more information about the funeral home and customs, that's a valid question, too. There's the possibility that her body made to to Ecuador right when she was supposed to and that when the Ecuadorian customs were inspecting the cargo, they detained and/or misplaced the body. That's a pretty decent possibility, and if that's the case, AA wouldn't be liable. It's also a possibility that the funeral home in NY messed up the paperwork and CAUSED a delay in customs or with the airline. Shipping body internationally requires a LOT of red tape and if it wasn't done properly, there's every possibility that a situation like this would occur. Again, if that's what happened, AA wouldn't be liable.

There's not a single person on this thread that thinks what happened to the OP is okay, or is blaming HIM for the situation. Rather, some of the people have said that before we hang AA out to dry, we should make sure that they're the responsible party.

This is obscene. My heart goes out to the family.

@IfThenElvis: "I am surprised that the body was not embalmed as it is very common in Latin America and the husband expected a traditional open casket funeral."

Maybe Ecuadorian embalmings are cheaper?

@IfThenElvis:

Would you prefer to sit next to the corpse rather than having it moved away?

Considering it is a corpse (and most likely beginning the process of decomp., which brings out all sorts of fun odors and health hazards), its best to isolate the corpse as quickly as possible from the other passengers through empty cabins/rows. If that isnt the case, then Singapore Airlines has a good approach to place the corpse in a cabin isolated until proper medical staff can take it away

Someone screwed up but we don't have enough info to know if it was AA. AA has regular flights from New York to Quito, Ecuador, using 757's, with a plane change in Miami and door-to-door durations of 9-24 hours.

From Quito to Guayaquil is ~200 miles as the crow flies (much more by road). Possibly the casket was delayed at Quito before being picked up by a local ground or air carrier.

In the best of circumstances I can't see better than 2-3 days from the funeral home door to funeral home door.

"Now boarding American Airlines flight 666, with non-stop service to the bottom"

@Optimistic Prime: @Git Em SteveDave is starlost:

They have to use Air Trays, which are hermetically sealed. AA uses the term "Jim Wilson" to refer to deceased-related things, and containers with bodies (which are in rectangular shape that can't really be mistaken for anything else) usually have JIM WILSON on them in big letters. It would suck to be named Jim Wilson and have a ticket on AA...I could only imagine the look on a flight attendant's face when she goes over the manifest!

[www.aacargo.com]

@IfThenElvis:

We call these the "KrisMorgue." The especially need it on their ultra-long-haul ETOPS flights since they're so far from suitable diversion points...and even if they could divert, it would be an operational and logistical nightmare...

Poor man. And poor daughter. I agree: Take AA for every penny.

@Fly Girl: "When people are asking why the OP opened the casket, and had it delivered to his house, I think that's a pretty valid question--"

After all of that maybe he wanted to verify that she was still there. Or it wasn't someone else in there. The hardest thing to do is predict how someone grieving will react to such inane asshattery.

Dear God.

I'm embarassed to live in the same state with AA. (FWIW, AA's base is at DFW airport.)

This family needs to sue for a nine-figure sum in Cash. No AA stock.

And AA needs to pay the family's taxes on its award. Bastards.

Customer: where's my wife's body?

AA: here are some free drink vouchers. Enjoy! Oh, sorry about your bag.

@SkokieGuy: I am truly at a loss for words. This was my initial reaction, as well.

I still can't over the fact that days had passed. This story would have been just as horrific had AA lost track of the body for 12 hours.