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Short Stuff: Dead Bodies and Airline Codes · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hello, Hello, and welcome to short Stuff. Short Stuff podcast.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: So nice I said it twice. Okay, there's Chuck, I'm Josh,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: there's Jerry. Let's get going, everybody. I've eaten up a
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: lot of time here. Yeah. Here's the thing with the
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Jim Wilson airline code. Everybody. Supposedly it is the American
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Airlines code for a dead body on a plane. And
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: when I first saw this and I thought that would
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: be a cool IDEA little did I know that it
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: would have been a podcast we don't do yet called
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: almost no Stuff. It would have been like forty five
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: seconds long. So we started trading things and we're going
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: to talk about shipping dead bodies and about other airline
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: codes and other fun stuff like that almost Stuff. But
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: I don't know if it's quite true or not. It
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: seems that American Airlines, uh, according to this author, is
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Jim Wilson airline code for a dead body on a plane.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: From our former website, how stuff Works dot com. Still around,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: still kicking, still doing it, still going, Everyone gonna check
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: it out. Uh. They got in touch with American Airlines
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: and they're kind of denied it that that was the truth.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: They said, who told you that, but it seems like
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: it's very much the truth that that's their code. Yeah.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Here's the thing, like, the whole the whole premise of
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: this urban legend, possible truth thing is that you would
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: ever be in a situation where you're on a plane
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: and some flight attendant needs to tell another flight attendant
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: at the back of the plane that there's something going
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: on with the dead body, and they can't just walk
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: down the aisle. It's like, oh, no, I gotta let
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: you know now. But even still like that would have
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: anything to do with the flight attendants, anything to do
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: with the cabin because all dead bodies are shipped in
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: the cargo hole. They don't they don't prop them up
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: in like you know, you know, they they fly them
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: a certain way, So there's no reason for them to
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: have a code like Jim Wilson to denote that there's
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: a corpse being transported on this plane. And yet the
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: strangest thing is that it really does seem like they
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: did have that code, Like you were saying, it's possible,
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: because even though they deny it now, the impression I
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: have is that they somewhat recently, but not in the
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: immediate past, but in the memorable past did call it
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: Jim Wilson Service, and then they just discontinued it and
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: called it what same people would call it, would be
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: like carefully and tenderly moving human remains, because you don't
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: have to have a code name for something like that. Yeah,
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: this was a little frustrating because I wanted there to
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: be a cool origin story. Nope, and there's not. But
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: apparently there is a page or at one time there
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: was recently on the National Funeral Director's Association website that
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: very much did say or does say uh, instructing their
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: members to use the American Airlines cargo Jim Wilson service. Right,
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: American Airlines is going, I don't know what talking about.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: I've never heard of that. No, And there's a site
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: called Jim Wilson I believe Jim Wilson dot com. It
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: might be dot org where it's just a single page
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: and there's some links and you know, quotes that kind
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: of support the idea that it it did exist, if
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: does if it doesn't. Still, there's a Wall Street Journal
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: article from seven that specifically says that that that is
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: the code for this type of service handling um non cremated,
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: casketed human remains, that it's Jim Wilson's service, and they
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: quote a funeral director saying that we say that because
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: you know it's it's much better to say something like
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: that than you know what it actually is around the
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: bereaving family, which again I don't understand that that that
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: guy's logic at all, doesn't really make any sense. Um,
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: but that I mean, it was in the Wall Street
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: Journal in n so that definitely lends some support as well.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: But was it specific to American airlines? I believe it was.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: I think it's all always been associated with American airlines,
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: which makes it even more you know, potentially correct. Yeah. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I found out that other airlines supposedly say HR for
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: Human remains abbreviate it. I saw h U M as well,
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  Speaker 1: the HUM service. What is that staying for human? It's
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: sure for human. It's like you got comfort plus sky HUM.
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  Speaker 1: Human remains that whole thing. Well, I guess that differentiates
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: it from human resources, which is commonly what you think
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: of with HR. Just HR and all those great meetings
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  Speaker 1: that companies always have about HR. Sure exactly, and human remains.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: So maybe we should take a break and because we
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: did dig up some stuff about how you can transport
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  Speaker 1: a dead body because you know, you don't think about it,
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: you could die on vacation in another state or another country. Um.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: And we'll tell you about that stuff right after this,
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: hey chuck, before we get back to this. Like, I
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: have one more piece of fishy evidence. If you search
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: on your favorite search engine, whatever that may be, I
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: certainly don't condone one over the other. Although I use
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: Firefox is a web browser. Now I avoid being like
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: the plague. Um I. If you type in Jim Wilson
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: American Airlines, not service, not human rights, no nothing, just
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  Speaker 1: Jim Wilson, American Airlines, you will find it takes you
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: to the American Airlines Human Remains site and it rolls you.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: It does rick roll you for sure. Wow. So it
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: just directs you right to their Huh it does right.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: So at the very least, the the your favorite search
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: engine is is in on this whole joke. That'd be
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: pretty cool. And there's also one other part to this
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: joke to um the uh there there's a linked in
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  Speaker 1: profile for a guy named Jim Wilson at American Airlines,
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  Speaker 1: and does it say, uh, this is avatar like a skeleton.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: Um no, it's like a normal PERSONA. Well, that's probably him,
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: I think so. So that's it for Jim Wilson. Here's
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: the deal though, if you do have the need to
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: transport a deceased loved one or yourself, like if someone
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: else is dealing with that, obviously, although you could probably
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: pre arrange this, uh, what you're gonna have to do
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  Speaker 1: is work with probably two funeral homes and funeral directors
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  Speaker 1: because you gotta get someone on the front end and
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  Speaker 1: the back end. You can't just from what I can
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  Speaker 1: tell A, you know, you can't do it at the
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: uh at the origin flight, like, you gotta get a
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  Speaker 1: known shipper. That's what is known as the funeral homes
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: and directors are approved as these shippers. But you can't
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  Speaker 1: just then say I'll just pick them up at baggage claim.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: You gotta get someone to do that behind the scenes.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: And that's going to be a funeral director as well. Right,
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  Speaker 1: So you need a funeral director on each end, and
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: that's gonna cost you. It's probably not super cheap. It depends.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, they haven't here anywhere from to fifteen grand.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: If it's international, it all depends on the weight, how
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: far you're traveling. Uh. And obviously you know you can
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: do it by plane, trainer, automobile, but the plane will
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: be the most expensive. Yeah, and train is pretty cost
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: effective driving the the could ever the corpse, the human
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  Speaker 1: remains yourself is the is um the most cost effective?
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  Speaker 1: Can you do that? You can do it, but you
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: have to follow all the same guidelines and laws that
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: that any funeral director would have to follow, and you
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: might not know all of them. But if you're really
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: research heavy and you want to have a story about
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: how you drove your dead aunt across the country and
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: you're station wagon, you can do it. The problem is,
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: is UM with driving in particular, you're gonna go through
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: a bunch of states that might have different laws about
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: transporting human remains. Some say has to be embalmed. Well,
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: what if your aunt wants to be a cryonically preserved, Well,
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: you're you can embalm somebody like that. So you have
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: to go around that state or it's just probably way
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  Speaker 1: better to hire a funeral director um to help with
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: that because they know this stuff and they know how
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: to handle it. Again, it's just pretty expensive. Yeah, and
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: here's something I never knew sort of one of the
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: maccab sides of travel insurance, you can actually pay, uh,
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  Speaker 1: you can pay somebody to take care of this just
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: in case, I guess insurance if you're I don't know,
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  Speaker 1: if you if you're on the road for a couple
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  Speaker 1: of years, or you're going someplace really dangerous, or maybe
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: if you're in ill health and you don't have to travel,
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: or if you plan on dying, you know your own hand,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: suppose you can do that. That's a really good point.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: I wonder if that's something that people who like travel
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: to Switzerland for assisted suicide take into account. Surely they do, maybe,
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  Speaker 1: I mean, apparently it cost less than five hundred bucks.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: Is certainly a lot cheaper than a fifteen thousand dollar
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  Speaker 1: international shipment exactly. Yeah, I saw as much as twenty
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  Speaker 1: five thousand for international shipping of of a body. You
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  Speaker 1: often have to, um have documents translated. Because you have
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: to have all your documents, everything from your passport to
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: the certificate that says you were embalmed. Everything, um, it
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: can get very very very costly. So yeah, five bucks.
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  Speaker 1: I wonder if the travel insurance people have gotten hip
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: to this thing though. I don't know. I mean it's
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: you know, everyone's always got their hand out. So it's
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: not like you can even put a casket directly into
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: the cargo hold. It has to sit. And especially made
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: tray that is built by a company that also charges
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: money for that right and and one of the early
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: manufacturers of air trays supposedly was the Jim Wilson Company. Posedly,
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: I supposedly, if you really want to do the right
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: thing and do it cheaper, well, I say it's the
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  Speaker 1: right thing is you will have cremated remains a much
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: more cost effective, much easier to ship. You can't even
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  Speaker 1: you can carry those yourself, even if you have the
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: right receptacle. Yes you can. And so if you are
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: going to fly with created remains, a lot of airlines
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: will let you carry them on. It's like carry on luggage.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: But that means they have to go through the X
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: ray machine, which means you have to have like you
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: can't use like a leadline urn because t s A
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: will be like you can't come on with that, and
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: we're not allowed to open it. Now there's a New
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: York Giants line lineman. I'm not sure what position he plays.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: His name is a J. Francis who just blew up
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: twitter um putting. I can't remember. I guess it was
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: T s A on blast because they went through his
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: luggage and he had checked the bag with his mother's
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: created remains, and they opened up the bag and got
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: his mother all over his stuff in his suitcase. What
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: he went berserk. The T s A had like a
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: different story about it. They said that they packed it
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: carefully and wasn't their fault, but he wasn't buy in it.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: So um, if I were transporting a loved one's created remains,
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: I would definitely carry it on. But you need to
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: have like a special wood box or something like that. Sure,
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: all of my animals are in wood boxes right at
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: least temporarily. Like you can get a nice urn on
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: the other end, but just don't try to transport them
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: through T s A with that really nice er. Yeah,
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: I like the wood box. I'm not a big urn guy.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: Oh so you okay? I thought you were making fun
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: of me, Like no, no, no, we have these very nice,
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: hand hand carved woodboxes. That's very nice. Not not into
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: the urns, very nice. I do have a little something
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: more though, on airline secret codes because I think everyone
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: knows that you can't just get on the intercom as
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: a pilot and say something awful was happening. Uh. You
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: need a little lead time to deal with stuff sometimes.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: So there's something called code RABO. Apparently they use that
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: to distract passengers from real danger so they can kind
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: of take care of things on the down low. Uh.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: Se means your plane has been hijacked, supposedly, So if
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: you hear that, no good, Yeah the number seventy Oh man,
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: I'm going to not be able to not listen out
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: for that constantly on every flight. Now do your pilot
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: announcing that, Uh, folks, we got ourselves a code. Everyone's
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: like what, we don't know what that is, and that's
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: probably for the best, So just sit back, relax, and
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: we will probably blow up any time. Now. It's one
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: of my favorite things, is it. It's your best impression.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: It's my impression of a pilot doing an impression of
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: chuck y uh. And then there's seventy six D or
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: seventy seven hundred that means respectively, radio failure UH or
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: general emergency. And then the status of all code ADAM,
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: which you'll also hear at chopping malls or whatever. And
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: that's when there's an incident with a child. Oh then
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: it's named after the Adam that was Adam Wash, Adam Wash. Yeah.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: Have you got anything else? Nothing else? No more codes. Nope,
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: that's it for Uh. This short Stuff on Jim Wilson.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: Who knows if it's real or not. I guess if
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: we all make believe that it is real, we can
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: make it real. So let's do that. Uh. And in
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: the meantime, Short Stuff is out. Stuff you should Know
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: is a production of I Heart Radios. How Stuff Works.
• 13:33
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