Unique Flying Organization

Back in the day, PA-32s were often used for transporting caskets and bodies. Airline transport is more common nowadays.
 
Yes. I ship bodies by cargo quite frequently.

This is an organization of funeral directors and Embalmers who are pilots or student pilots.

The actual name is now Flying Funeral Directors Association.
 
Tantalum said:
So... I assume they're putting just the one soul on their IFR flight plans!
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I used to listen a lot to military atc when I lived close to an airbase; Once when a C130 returned the body of a soldier who died in Afghanistan home, the tower asked “how many persons on board?”.. pilot said “12 pob” and corrected this later to “sorry, 11 pob”. Pretty painfull.
 
Speaking of thread drift...

I once took off on a part 135 flight in Alaska with four souls on board. Upon arrival at my destination, I advised the tower to have an ambulance meet us at the airplane because we now had three souls on board.
 
IK04 said:
Speaking of thread drift...

I once took off on a part 135 flight in Alaska with four souls on board. Upon arrival at my destination, I advised the tower to have an ambulance meet us at the airplane because we now had three souls on board.
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That kind of sucks. What happened? Heart attack? Talk about distraction
 
benyflyguy said:
That kind of sucks. What happened? Heart attack? Talk about distraction
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The flight was a passenger run from Hoonah to Juneau. The passengers were a 90-something year old Tlingit woman, her granddaughter and another family member. The Grandma was going to the Bartlett hospital to see her doctor and begin hospice...

Shortly after takeoff, the granddaughter tapped my arm and signaled that grandma was gone. She said not to hurry and it was just her time. That's just the way those native folks are...

I had coordinated for an ambulance to meet us on the ramp, but I called the tower to let them know to have them meet us planeside on the taxiway. They understood why when I told them our souls on board was now three.
 
There was a company in Oklahoma that used 206’s to fly remains around back in the 70’s. I used to fly for an airline that flew to the Rio Grande Valley. Snowbirds = Bodies going home in the winter. Once had five on board.

The very worst flight(thankfully not mine) was from Frankfort Germany to Dover AFB in a MD11 flown by a good friend. Plane was empty except for one human remains being escorted home. Military remains are always escorted by someone, usually from their unit. The young man was a Navy Corpsman that was killed shortly after arriving in country. My friend went back and spoke to the escort and commented that he looked older than most escorts. He said he just kind of smiled. He asked him if he knew the man he was escorting and he said “Yes, he is my son”. The father was a former Navy Corpsman and his son served in the same unit many years apart. They opened the door leading to the cargo area and took cushions from the seats for him and let travel home closer to his son. My friend said that he HAD to let the auto land make the landing because he said that he kept tearing up.

That one was tough.
 
And yet now and then, an extra soul joins the flight... babies run on their own schedule :) Birth and death are both a part of life, and if some people are to be believed, death is just a rebirth. I hope they're right, not so much for myself, but for those I have loved that have made that trip. And hey, what better way for a pilot to go out than to take a coffin ride at altitude? Would suit me just fine.
 
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