Passengers Who Never Complain
November 27, 1976
There are some passengers who never complain, no matter how rough their flight. The reason is: they're already dead.
It's probably not well-known that mortuaries are good customers of FBO charter departments. Remains of loved ones who became deceased at a distance from their final resting places are often transported by air. The cabin of a Seneca or a Cherokee Six with its seats removed and its side door loading is a perfect air transport for an object the size and shape of a human body, whether it's in a box, in a bag, or just under a sheet on a stretcher.
On one trip, the sheet covering the body was poorly secured, and it partially blew off during the flight. These flights are single-pilot flights. You can't expect the pilot to get up out of his seat to tend to the cargo during the flight. Oh well, what happens out of sight of the mortuary's client before the final result is much like the making of sausage: something you probably don't really want to know.
There's no interesting story associated with the particular flight itself as logged above, other than the circumstances responsible for the "passenger" having to take the flight occasioned a logbook remark: he'd been murdered. Other than that, it was a pretty routine flight. As most of them are. The great majority of my logbook's flight details have no special remarks, because they were just routine flights, and therefore no stories attached to them that can be remembered decades later.
03-05-2023
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References for Non-Pilots:
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