Planes Large Enough

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JasonCT

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To transport casketed human remains?

I've spend 10 years working as a funeral director/embalmer and am curious about which planes would be large enough to transport a fully casketed body?

So far I am thinking, Bonanza A36, Cessnas 402, 208s, anyone else know of any large enough (somewhat reasonable to own, yes I know Citations, Gulfstreams, etc.) to suit this purpose?
 
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How much does a casket weigh?

Although you are asking about casket transport it seems to me your options would be greater with body bags. However I don't know the business.
 
pbramlett said:
How much does a casket weigh?

Although you are asking about casket transport it seems to me your options would be greater with body bags. However I don't know the business.
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They should be at least in "air trays" which are a wood bottomed tray with cardboard top to encase the body as a min. method of transport. I'm asking casketed because that would be your biggest scenario.

Caskets can weight from almost nothing 40lbs to a couple hundred lbs depending on their construction.
 
I think you're gonna need something with big barn doors in the back like: a Cherokee 6/Saratoga/Seneca, maybe an A36 or 58 Baron. A 414/421 would do it if you can get the casket in the door. I'm not sure how wide a casket is? :dunno:
 
I'd look into some bush planes. They usually have some huge cargo doors and plenty of space. A 206 might do it. A 207 will, a 208 you could probably get 5 caskets into. There's the Quest Kodiak. The GA-7 Airvan. Anything along those lines.
 
182, remove all seats except for the pilot's. Load and unload to the right. An old jump plane, with the door mod, would probably be ideal.
 
I'm pretty sure I saw them haul a full-sized casket in a C-207 on Flying Wild Alaska a couple years ago.
 
Leave the casket out of the deal and use body bags... Who really cares till the viewing ??:dunno:
 
N801BH said:
Leave the casket out of the deal and use body bags... Who really cares till the viewing ??:dunno:
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I agree, though air trays (what the body bags go into) are pretty much the same dimensions as a casket
air_tray_480.jpg


There are 2 types, 1 slightly smaller just to accommodate a body, the other for a full casket.
 
CapeCodJay said:
I agree, though air trays (what the body bags go into) are pretty much the same dimensions as a casket
air_tray_480.jpg


There are 2 types, 1 slightly smaller just to accommodate a body, the other for a full casket.
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Do you need to use an air tray, or can you just stuff the bag in the back seat?
 
SkyHog said:
Do you need to use an air tray, or can you just stuff the bag in the back seat?
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Well let's put it this way, you wouldn't want just the bag with some peoples work. :no: You want some protection, and shipping trays are cheaper than disaster pouches (which would be impervious)
 
Morne said:
182, remove all seats except for the pilot's. Load and unload to the right. An old jump plane, with the door mod, would probably be ideal.
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Doubt you can get a casket in one. A stretcher, yes. Seen that done.
 
Everybody I've ever known that has flown caskets or human remains has used a Cherokee Six. I think the big doors and the ability to take the rear seats out really seal the deal.

On a related note, a guy I used to fuel at an airport I worked at told me that his first flying job involved shipping human remains from Vietnam around the US. Apparently they used to use cardboard boxes, held down by a retention strap. He said that on one flight he was in and out of IMC, at night, and heard a lot of shuffling around him. Eventually he turned around to see that the corpse was sitting bolt upright.

Yeah, yeah, I know it's probably a BS story, but still....
 
Why use any casket or bag at all? Just sit that sucker down in the right seat and call him your safety pilot :rofl::lol:
 
A 206 might do it.
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I know a 206 will for a fact if you remove the rear seats. I accompanied three bodies (in bags) to Loveland, CO for autopsy from central Wyoming. Granted, we stacked them to fit them in. The pilot thought he would be funny while filing the flight plan and made a crack about "Two souls on board, five bodies total."
 
infotango said:
Everybody I've ever known that has flown caskets or human remains has used a Cherokee Six. I think the big doors and the ability to take the rear seats out really seal the deal.

On a related note, a guy I used to fuel at an airport I worked at told me that his first flying job involved shipping human remains from Vietnam around the US. Apparently they used to use cardboard boxes, held down by a retention strap. He said that on one flight he was in and out of IMC, at night, and heard a lot of shuffling around him. Eventually he turned around to see that the corpse was sitting bolt upright.

Yeah, yeah, I know it's probably a BS story, but still....
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I'd hate to have to punch a dead guy for scaring me, but if that happened I would freak the F out.
 
CapeCodJay said:
To transport casketed human remains?

I've spend 10 years working as a funeral director/embalmer and am curious about what planes would be large enough to transport a fully casket body?

So far I am thinking, Bonanza A36, Cessnas 402, 208s, anyone else know of any large enough (somewhat reasonable to own, yes I know Citations, Gulfstreams, etc.) to suit this purpose?
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I used to fly for a mortician in CA, started with a 172 strapping bagged bodies in the right seat, stepped up to a Cherokee 6 because we could load entire coffins, actually two at a time. The PA-32/34 series planes are pretty good at the job, a BE 36 or 58 would work ok as well.
 
N801BH said:
Leave the casket out of the deal and use body bags... Who really cares till the viewing ??:dunno:
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Because that way you get to make the money off the coffin as well rather than the guy at the other end.
 
CapeCodJay said:
I can assure you that it DOESN'T happen. But, makes for good story.
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If they are Jewish and you're flying them within 24 hrs of death unaltered there is what I was told is called Post Mortem Synaptic release which I can assure you scares the crap out of you when they are in a bag next to you...:yikes:
 
Henning said:
If they are Jewish and you're flying them within 24 hrs of death unaltered there is what I was told is called Post Mortem Synaptic release which I can assure you scares the crap out of you when they are in a bag next to you...:yikes:
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I've either removed, embalmed, or prepared for final disposal literally thousands of bodies (~300 x 10yrs) and never has this "so called" event happened. I assure you it's mostly for ghost stories and tall tales at the bonfire.
 
Henning said:
Because that way you get to make the money off the coffin as well rather than the guy at the other end.
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Actually no, you have to consider the health issue of transporting (unembalmed) remains. Unless the container is as impervious as possible you are possibly exposing someone to bodily fluids that could put them at risk for illness. That's why disaster pouches are good, or regular bags with airtrays and absorbant materials.

Also, you have to consider why a casket is being shipped. In this mobile society we live in, it is not uncommon for people to die and be buried elsewhere. People simply aren't born, live, die in the same towns all their life anymore. So, many people plan their funeral's in advance and that often includes a casket.
 
CapeCodJay said:
I've either removed, embalmed, or prepared for final disposal literally thousands of bodies (~300 x 10yrs) and never has this "so called" event happened. I assure you it's mostly for ghost stories and tall tales at the bonfire.
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Once again for Henning : take Tom Clancy's advice. The difference between fact and fiction is you have to make fiction believable.

Try working on that Chuckles.
 
I've either removed, embalmed, or prepared for final disposal literally thousands of bodies (~300 x 10yrs) and never has this "so called" event happened. I assure you it's mostly for ghost stories and tall tales at the bonfire.
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Likewise. I worked around funeral homes for two years as a funeral director's assistant (handled removals and assisted with embalmings and cremations), was a deputy coroner for a while and spend a fair amount of time around dead bodies for my current work. I have never seen anything like that nor come across anyone who has seen it first hand themselves. That said, I have seen someone's fingers move a tiny amount when the pressure on the embalming pump was accidentally turned up too high.
 
SteveinIndy said:
Likewise. I worked around funeral homes for two years as a funeral director's assistant (handled removals and assisted with embalmings and cremations), was a deputy coroner for a while and spend a fair amount of time around dead bodies for my current work. I have never seen anything like that nor come across anyone who has seen it first hand themselves. That said, I have seen someone's fingers move a tiny amount when the pressure on the embalming pump was accidentally turned up too high.
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ditto. Grew up around my grandfather's funeral home. People have all sorts of crazy theories. None of them ever happen. It's no different than a dead animal on the side of the road from that persoective.
 
Stupid question, you're flying with a casket in the back, encounter an emergency and declare. ATC asks you how many souls are on board.

What do you report?
 
Sac Arrow said:
Stupid question, you're flying with a casket in the back, encounter an emergency and declare. ATC asks you how many souls are on board.

What do you report?
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Count the ones who have a pulse... The rest are considered "freight"
 
I've seen a few caskets flown into AUG in a Cherkoee Six. Seemed to work pretty well.
 
Sac Arrow said:
Stupid question, you're flying with a casket in the back, encounter an emergency and declare. ATC asks you how many souls are on board.

What do you report?
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Yourself and the dead body. In case of a catastrophic accident both of you are going to be death. It wont make any difference if the guy in the casket was already death to begin with. Search and Rescue will be looking for two bodies.
 
RotorAndWing said:
Once again for Henning : take Tom Clancy's advice. The difference between fact and fiction is you have to make fiction believable.

Try working on that Chuckles.
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Do you follow henning around providing this advice? If not you need to! :lol:

Sac Arrow said:
Stupid question, you're flying with a casket in the back, encounter an emergency and declare. ATC asks you how many souls are on board.

What do you report?
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0... I am a soulless person
 
This reminds me of the cessna 150 that crashed into a graveyard... there were two survivors but they're still finding hundreds of bodies! :hairraise:
 
There is a trade association for this: 'The flying funeral directors'. There is a guy over on the red board who owns a funeral home and has posted about this before.

PA32s work pretty well for this job. Apparently, picking up your clients by plane has fallen out of favor. Don't remember why, probably cost and logistics. I have seen people load caskets before, looked like it consisted of two ABS plastic shells with metal clamps around the rim.

Transporting a full-size burial caskets may be a challenge in a PA32, A36, Baron etc. All I have ever seen are the cardboard boxes or those plastic shells.
 
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Why not cremate first, then transport? Sounds like it would solve a lot of W&B issues.
 
CBeaulieu said:
I've seen a few caskets flown into AUG in a Cherkoee Six. Seemed to work pretty well.
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NOT to hijack the thread, but this DOES involve funeral home transportation, and it involved Corey's place of calling, Augusta, Maine.

My late father in-law was the 2nd generation of Plummer Funeral Home, in Augusta. His father Henry Plummer owned the first motorized ambulance in the state of Maine. When the powers-that-were came to all the business owners to solicit funds for the building of Augusta General Hospital Mr. Plummer, because of his recent purchase, was cash poor. So he made a pledge. "When you get your hospital built, any patient from Augusta and Farmingdale who needs transportation to your hospital will get free transportation from Plummer Funeral Home." That pledge was carried forward for decades, up until the time that funeral homes ceased having ambulances in the company's fleet of hearses and or Cadillac automobiles, because of the growing prevalence of commercial firms: Ace Ambulance Svc., Allied Ambulance Svc., and other such organizations.
Oh; father in-law -- embalmer/funeral director did tell the story about a casket resident "sitting straight up" one time. ??? - - - might have been another story from the retired US Navy Commander.

HR
 
cirrusmx said:
Yourself and the dead body. In case of a catastrophic accident both of you are going to be death. It wont make any difference if the guy in the casket was already death to begin with. Search and Rescue will be looking for two bodies.
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Only if you're in a Cirrus! :lol:
 
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