Airlines say flight attendants are primarily there for your safety (not service). A federal appeals court just put that claim to the test, at least for international flights.
A fourteen year old child was flying American Airlines from San Pedro Sula, Honduras to Miami with his family, continuing on to New York. He went into cardiac arrest and lost consciousness.
His family yelled for help. And, according to their lawsuit, crew members delayed responding, delayed moving him from his window seat to an area where aid could be given, delayed asking for medical professionals onboard, and delayed using the aircraft’s automated external defibrillator. They didn’t follow procedure, and the boy died.
Ultimately, two medically trained passengers came back to help. CPR was performed. The defibrillator was brought out, but the suit says flight attendants struggled with how to use it and that when the machine appeared to prepare for a shock, no shock was delivered. Instead, it kept advising CPR. The flight diverted to Cancun, but the child passed away.
According to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit,
- The crew response didn’t matter for liability
- All that does is whether the FAA-required AED device onboard actually worked
The crew’s response to a medical emergency does not amount to an “accident” under the Montreal Convention, the treaty governing injuries and deaths on international flights. Alleged violations of American’s procedures doesn’t change that, despite claims that:
- Crew was slow to respond, to transfer the child to the back of the aircraft where aid could be rendered, to immediately notify the flight deck and contact the on-call physician, to promptly request medically trained passengers, and to begin CPR immediately.
- They didn’t promptly initiate AED resuscitation, did not effectively use the AED, and struggled to even turn on and operate the AED.
The Fifth Circuit accepted that the beginning of the incident was chaotic. Carts blocked the aisle, one flight attendant had to climb over a cart, and a medical volunteer later saw “a lot of commotion” and “nothing was really being done.” But the crew met a minimum standard for response (the child was moved to the galley, crew got help from got help from medically trained passengers, got the AED and assisted with CPR, alerted the captain).
This isn’t a negligence case – it’s governed by the Montreal Convention, and liability here requires an “accident” which is an unexpected or unusual event external to the passenger. A crew response that is imperfect, confused, delayed, or inconsistent with an airline manual isn’t an accident. Even if crew performance should have been better, that’s not an airline-caused unexpected or unusal external event. That would require “willing inaction.”
The lawsuit alleged insufficient training but all flight attendants had completed the required annual AED training whether or not they retained anything. Mishandling an onboard emergency doesn’t create airline liability.
What remains of the case is whether American Airlines had a functional defibrillator, as legally required.
- American says the AED worked. The device recorded a shock eight minutes after activation, and American’s expert said there was no evidence the machine was faulty.
- Four witnesses, including a doctor and a nurse who helped treat Greenidge, testified that the child received no shock.
The Fifth Circuit said this is a factual matter for a jury, that American can’t defeat witness testimony about a possibly malfunctioning AED by pointing to data generated by the machine that’s alleged to have malfunctioned.
American will argue that the AED’s internal record is more reliable than witnesses watching a chaotic resuscitation in an airplane galley, and that even if something went wrong with the device a working one might not have saved the passenger.
However, there’s a simple story for a jury that a child suffered cardiac arrest, federal rules required lifesaving equipment, multiple witnesses say the equipment failed and the boy died.
Beyond the facts of this case, the court’s ruling supports the obviously correct conclusion that flight attendants are not doctors, and the standard of emergency response they’re expected to provide isn’t hospital grade. They receive some training, but they aren’t medical professionals. That’s one aspect of safety, and of course another is emergency evacuation. Earlier this month Frontier Airlines passengers ignored admonitions of cabin crew to leave their bags behind for safety during an evacuation.
Flight attendants are safety professionals, but on an international flight there’s some sense in which courts treat that as a paperwork exercise. There’s greater scrutiny of the required onboard devices than the people put there to use them.
I don’t know that i would consider providing medical care as a part of “safety.”
I mean, police are there for safety as well (allegedly), but they don’t do medical emergencies either.
I don’t beleive one bit of this story.
Basic AED facts… just because you don’t have a pulse doesn’t mean an AED will be effective at restoring a pulse, and the AEDs are programmed to NOT deliver a shock if the problem isn’t a problem that would be helped with a shock.
An AED not delivering a shock and advising CPR is functioning properly.
One little fact buried in the judgment: this teen was 315 pounds. 14 years old and 315 pounds?!? Color me shocked that he had a cardiac incident.
Agree with Christopher Raehl. Not all cardiac rhythms will respond to an AED shock. So they are programmed not to respond to these rhythms.
@Kevin Rivera: There is a link to an actual court decision about this case. (See the fifth paragraph of this post, just above the bullet points.)
You can believe what you want about whether or not the AA crew did or did not act appropriately and whether the AED did or did not function properly. But this isn’t AI-generated slop. There was a real teenager who died on an AA flight and his family sued the airline.
Doesn’t seem to me that AA or the crew is at fault. A 315 pound 14-year-old is a disaster waiting to happen. All that being said, I would not want to put my life, or the life of my loved ones, in the hands of a flight crew, regardless of what airline. Most are too busy on their phones to know what is going on.
Flight attendants are not medical personnel. They have limited training.
Obviously, a medical emergency can happen to anyone. But when I see people looking like they’re already gotten one foot in the grave getting on a plane I think “what are they doing here?” If there’s an emergency and no trained medical personnel are flying they may be out of luck.
Regardless, it’s a sad story.
@OneXMarine
I couldn’t agree more, parents letting their 14 year old child balloon up to 315 pounds is criminal in and of itself. Expecting a flight crew (not trained medical professionals) to handle that type of emergency is unreasonable. No idea about the AED, but those parents should first look at themselves in the mirror before they expect to get a pay out for their bad behavior and lack of being a responsible parent. I am certainly making some assumptions without any background on the deceased, but given the 315 pounds at 14 years old, it seems to point to a dietary and self discipline issue vs the failure of an airline flight crew or medical device (that even working properly, is no guarantee of resuscitation).
The flight attendants did NOTHING WRONG. They are only there for you to follow their orders and nothing else!
Please be emphatic. A death of a child. No one wanted it to happen regardless of the circumstances.
315 lbs and 14. No problem, we don’t want the kid.
I see this case has come back, nothing has changed.
In Hollywood the doctors shock a flat line. In the real world they never do. “Continue CPR” means the device did not detect a rhythm that should be shocked. The true purpose of the device is to STOP your heart, it is absolutely useless if the heart is already stopped. Its only job is to stop ineffective beating and hope the heart starts itself back up properly.
Flight attendants are there for one reason only….. A pay check.
They go through the motions with seat belts, etc.
And they bring a cup of bad coffee once in awhile.
But in an emergency, they are pretty much useless.
On the other hand. an over weight teen is not their problem.
AEDs make measurements and deliver shocks if required according to their internally programmed procedure if they are working correctly. They do not need to deliver a shock every time. The AED will have to be thoroughly tested to make sure it is working correctly.
@Alan, not sure what you’re trying to say. You’ve said absolutely nothing about flight attendants but everything about you. You’re a real winner in my book sweet Alan.
The AED did not shock because of crew knowledge. Shock can only work with Ventricular Fribulation ( V-FIB). If the child was in asystole ( no heartbeat) CPR and epi is the course of action.
A 14 year old does not get to 315 lbs just by eating.
There must be some medical condition that causes this.
Training in Basic Cardiac Life Support (BCLS) that life guards, school teachers, police officers, etc receive includes training on how to perform CPR and how to use an AED. FAs are required by the FAA to be trained in CPR and AED use. This is a “skinnier” training approach than BCLS training, and it would be worthwhile, IMO, to upgrade their training given the long delay in getting a victim to a hospital.
Yes, full BCLS training does take 10-16 hours for your first certification. Despite this, I believe that every competent adult should get their BCLS card. You’ll feel terrible if someone you love goes down and you don’t know what to do (and AEDs are available in many large buildings, including airports). You can find a course near you at: https://cpr.heart.org/en/course-catalog-search or by going to the Red Cross website.
Sorry, need to correct the time requirement. The 10 hr + is for “train the trainer” course. The standard course for trainees is 4-5 hours.
Flight attendants are there to sit in the galley, ignore passengers and play on their phones. That’s all.
Mark F, the teachers and police officers among my family and friends were not required to get BCLS training. Maybe they all live in States that don’t require it. My airline at one time trained us on inserting airways and using the bag. They then abandoned that part of our yearly recertification.
Some of the comments are judgmental the child could have had a syndrome something like Prader–Willi . Telling a person with Prader–Willi to stop eating is like telling you and me to choose not to breathe- forever. It just does not work.
Kindness is free.
Christopher Raehl exactly….if there is no shockable rhythm the AED will not deliver a shock. There is very little room to conduct CPR on an airline. They would need to move the person to the galley. etc. I feel for the parents. Who knows if the child had a congenital problem …..Teaching CPR is not the same as having to perform CPR….what a sad situation all around for the family and thank goodness two people did step up.
Many facts mitigate the liability of this sensationalized case. Please give the crew and parents a break.
* If there is no arrhythmia the AED can correct, then CPR is the only option.
* Comments about the AED not delivering a shock and still working properly are correct (i.e., no correctable arrhythmia).
* CPR is effective only 10% to 25% of the time, even with advanced training and equipment.
* This appears to be a high-risk medical case with difficult logistics to access care — try moving a 315-pound inert person from a window seat sometime. I know it is not easy.
* I don’t know the details, but implying that the parents were negligent without facts only worsens their tragedy.
Something to keep in mind here: In a hospital setting the doctor doesn’t go for the defibrillator unless they have already decided they are looking at a shockable rhythm. Thus it’s always used when grabbed. AEDs are designed to make the rhythm evaluation, thus they are being inserted earlier into the sequence of events before the decision to shock has been made. Thus they will not always fire. And we keep seeing these cases where it doesn’t fire and people say the machine wasn’t working.
Flight attendants are safety professionals,
No, they in fact are not. They are lazy waitresses.