American Airlines flight 715 today from Venice to Philadelphia diverted today for a medical emergency. It was a crewmember on board in distress. And unfortunately 38-year veteran flight attendant Carol Wright passed away unexpectedly.
AAL715 has Just diverted to Dublin Airport due to a medical emergency.
Photos below⬇️#dublinairport #aviation #diversion #aal715 #aa715 #Dublin #Ireland pic.twitter.com/PqcnJEG40g
— Shauns_Aviation🇮🇪✈️ (@Shauns_Aviation) June 21, 2023
I reached out to American Airlines for a statement on the tragdey, but they did not respond. However aviation watchdog JonNYC shares the internal note that American posted to Jetnet, informing colleagues about the loss.
AA:
just _heartbreaking_
"Very, very warm and kind personality. Very valiant efforts with CPR made but ultimately she passed."SO tragic and terrible: pic.twitter.com/TBbvTHOAKt
— 🇺🇦 JonNYC 🇺🇦 (@xJonNYC) June 22, 2023
I don’t recall ever having the pleasure of flying with Ms. Wright, but she’ll certainly be missed by her colleagues. The flight diverted in hopes of saving her. Of course without a full crew complement, the rest of the flight was cancelled. If passengers were told the result, I’m sure they’d be patient and understanding.
We interact with all sorts of people during our travels, getting to know them only in the most fleeting fashion, never thinking that a given interaction will be our last our theirs. Next time something goes wrong on a trip, remember that both your fellow passengers and employees are people with hopes, dreams, and families who care about them. Crew are away from those families taking care of you, as their jobs sure, but maybe this humanizes the experience somewhat.
I am reading daily of younger people passing away unexpectedly…this seems to be something happening with much increased frequency of late without much explanation.
. My condolences to the family and all who knew her.
Why does this name sound familiar? I flew PHL-LHR in April and swear one of the pursers in one direction was named Carol. Could be more than one but who knows.
@gene
AA pilot shot dead 2 days ago in San Juan while on a layover.
@Gene that was two years ago
I never knew her but my prayed go out to gmher friends and family. I was on a flight with the crew of flight 93 shortly before tragedy struck. I know the feelibg of losing friends and colleagues .we were good friends. They were good people. Others need to stop read the post in here and show them respect. It’s a hard job and worse than before covid. Praying for all involved. Rest in Peace Carol.
She had a lot of years in and undoubtedly flew with a lot of crew. May their wonderful memories with her help them through their grief. The same for family and friends.
How sad for her, her family and friends. May her soul find peace.
Seeing loads of these articles about non-elderly people suddenly dying. Is it DVT causing it, or something else?
Sad to hear of the lady passing must be difficult for her family. Hope AA looks after her family.
Younger people die all the time and it is natural to look for causation.
With the advent of social media we get the news much faster and so it seems more younger people are dying because it catches your eye. I am unsure if the numbers are going up but it may just be frequency bias.
It won’t be DVT as that in golfed being sat down for long periods of time in small tight sauces . An FA is on their feet all day so no way can be dVT!
Could an off-duty attendant make up the numbers should there be one on board? Assuming they were time legal.
@Airfarer Yes an off duty flight attendant could’ve filled in to obtain the required minimum crew provided they had required equipment and met legalities but remember, the working crew just witnessed their colleague in medical distress and ultimately pass away. I can’t imagine they were in the right frame of mind to continue that flight.
The first sentence of the article is incorrect. AA 715 was operating from VCE to PHL and diverted to DUB.
“American Airlines flight 715 today from Philadelphia to Dublin diverted today for a medical emergency.”
While death, esp. untimely and unplanned, shakes us all, it is inevitable for all of us. We will and should not know the specifics of how Mrs. Wright passed away but it appears that AA did a very good job of handling the situation and I doubt if many passengers would have a complaint – assuming they were able to properly handle passenger accommodation on the ground in DUB.
As for summer operations across carriers, it is shaping up to be a rough summer operationally but AA is doing as good as or better job than its competitors outside of weather induced delays – which have happened quite a bit in Florida and Texas where AA has large operations. They appear to have more aircraft and staff reserves in order to bounce back.
In contrast, UA is consistently cancelling more flights in advance than any other carrier. They are scheduling more flights than they can reliably deliver by a wider margin and are cancelling a higher percentage of flights in advance.
People, NOT 38-years old. 38-year veteran flight attendant meaning, someone who STARTED their career in 1985.
Really not trying to be crass or disrespectful at all, but just wanted to point out that some people making comments above may be misreading – the article says the FA was a *38 year veteran* of the airline. I too originally read it as the FA being 38 years old because that is often how journalists report (the age of the individual, not their tenure in a professional role).
@gene this happened on February 4, 2020. Sadly, the pilot was caught in a cross fire between a customer and 4 bouncers outside a club! The customer left and came back to club with a gun and started shooting at the bouncers. He was killed.
This is why I will never fly Cape Air, which operates with only one pilot.
Wow – Gary it is not all about keeping the flight going with another flight attendant. The working crew was without a doubt in shock. How callus of you to think they could have/should have continued on. They were also exhausted from performing CPR – on a coworker. You are all kinds of a crappy and uncaring person. Everyone knows you don’t like AA from your “blogs”, but this is a new low.
So sad. I’m not saying this applies in this instance, but as people have noted, more younger people seem to be dying.
Drug Overdoses
A 17.6% increase in drug overdose deaths helped drive this record high. A total of 98,268 people died from drug overdoses in 2021, also an all-time high.
The 35- to 44-year age group is experiencing the most opioid overdose deaths – 20,137 – a 20% increase from 2020, and a 73% increase since 2019. Currently, 71% of preventable opioid deaths occur among those ages 25 to 54.
I flew with Carol a few times over the years. PHL is my home airport and she was based here. She was always an absolute delight. No one handled difficult pax with more aplomb than she did.
Carol must of been around 60, but that is still way too young for her to pass away. My condolences to her family.
Could be DVT and no DVT does not just affect sedentary persons with sit down jobs. I was just recently diagnosed. I am a non smoking male, height /weight appropriate. Was told it was most likely caused by some recent long distance flights. Doctor put me on blood thinners and encouraged use of compression socks and baby aspirin when I fly.
@NMR – boo. hoo. They’re supposed to be “professionals”, remember? Stow the body and move on. Hell, the dead one probably provided better in-flight service than the alive ones.
Don’t know why you’re calling her young either. Not with 38 years in the gig. Airlines need to force an earlier retirement on the sky waitresses.
I was on the flight and we were told a medical event was occurring not long after takeoff when the crew got in and asked for assistance from any medical professionals on board. Whatever her initial symptoms were seemed to stabilize because the two volunteers then returned to their seats. The crew continued service and just as meals were being completed being handed out, something reoccurred and the crew called for the volunteers again with great urgency. Not long after we were informed that we were landing in Dublin. After about an hour in the ground we deplaned. We weren’t told she passed but we all assumed that was the case.
My heart goes out to the crew and to Carole’s family.
I was on the flight. It was scary for our children. Once she became unresponsive, it was a very quick descent and landing. When we arrived at the airport the following day, much of the airport staff seemed to know what happened and I did a search on the internet to confirm.
Fred,
your statement about mandatory retirement seems particularly out of touch considering that she appears – just from pictures to be younger than 65 – and her years of service make it possible she could be while there is movement in Congress to allow pilots to work beyond 65. I would far rather put stricter age requirements on pilots than on flight attendants, if age is at all a reasonable limit on age.
Given that there are really a very small percentage of employees in any industry that die of natural causes on the job, there really is no basis for changing anything. There are more backup flight attendants on a flight than there are pilots and AA apparently did handle the situation w/ tact, privacy and respect for their employee and her coworkers.
This was a rare, unfortunate situation that is reflective of human reality. The only “could have done better” moment is to wonder if her life could have been saved if they landed earlier given the statement above that she experienced symptoms soon after takeoff. I am sure that, if she had said she needed immediate medical support, they would have landed. If there is a lesson for us all, it is to seek medical help at the earliest opportunity if there is the possibility that something could be significantly wrong. Of course we all want to believe otherwise but sometimes our optimism about ourselves can be costly.
She appears to have been a great asset to American and will be missed both on the job and to her family.
The average age of the human body was designed to be good though the Age of 35 that is why we reach puberty at 16 which is middle age. It is because of modern medicine we live so long and have so many issues. A 34 yr old does not have a heart attack but a 65 does
Vax status?
Dear Fred,
As a flight attendant I want you to know that we would never disrespect you, your body or your family by stowing you somewhere and continuing on with our service, etc. In fact, if you were to die on a flight of ours we would be devastated and sad as well as respectful to your family. We are human and lost a beautiful friend and coworker the other day. Even those of us working flights that day, and surely for many days after, we were emotionally taken back, shared hugs and tears and some even had nightmares. I hope this never happens to you or anyone.