When Death Occurs On United Airlines’ Island Hopper

United Airlines operates an “Island Hopper” service from Honolulu to Guam, calling on five airports in the Federated States of Micronesia and the Marshall Islands. When death tragically occurs onboard, Island Hopper operations become more complicated.

Passenger Death On United Airlines Island Hopper – How United Handled It

Three times per week, a United 737-800 operating as UA154 takes off from Honolulu just as the sun begins to rise, making five stops enroute to Guam:

• Majuro (MAJ)
• Kwajalein (KWA)
• Kosrae (KSA)
• Pohnpei (PNI)
• Chuuk (TKK)

I’ve reviewed the flight, which I took many years ago, here.

> Read More: Fond Memories Of United Airlines’ Island Hopper

The Kwajalein segment lands at Bucholz Army Airfield, a WWII-era Japanese military facility (later taken by American forces in 1944). Being an active military base owned by the US military, when landing on the Kwajalein Atolls passengers are prohibited from leaving the aircraft without permission and also prohibited from taking photos or videos of the island.

On February 25, UA154 took off from Kwajalein and landed in Kosrae on schedule. But on the ground in Korsae tragedy struck.

A FlyerTalk member who was on the flight posted this account:

I was on the flight 154 on Feb 24/25.

A pax died on the plane in KSA while waiting to depart for PNI.

After an hour of trying to save him there was initially some concern about having the minimum required medical equipment to continue the flight. That took some time to figure out and that is the story the captain stuck with til the end.

I suspect there was also some concern that the pilots would time out at PNI or TKK if we continued and there was any kind of delay. So dispatch made the decision to have us fly direct KSA-GUM because I assume there are more hotels and infrastructure to accommodate all the pax who were not heading to GUM.

They gave all those pax hotel vouchers at the Westin and shuttled them on a bus and ran a special “mini hopper” on Feb 26 departed GUM at 8:00 am GUM-PNI-TKK-GUM so might need to search for that flight. It was a 3xxx flight number.

Complicating matters was there was an island-wide power outage in KSA from an utility pole that fell earlier in the day so there were no lights or AC in the KSA terminal.

We ended up arriving about 3 hours late (spent about five hours on the plane in KSA) because they also had trouble with dispatch figuring out if they could load enough fuel to get us to GUM given KSA’s short runway and supposedly full/heavy plane (must have been cargo because there were lots of empty seats). Once that was figured out we needed to top off the fuel tanks and there seems to be some complicated process where a fire truck had to come and be on standby while the plane was being fueled by the onboard mechanic.

I also suspect an error was discovered at the last minute on the dispatch paperwork because we left the terminal, but were held at the runway threshold for over 30 minutes while the flight attendants recounted the amount of pax onboard a couple times. The captain never announced what was going on, but by that point everyone was over the whole ordeal and just wanted it to end. Me included.

The island hopper is brutal, even for an avgeek like myself sitting in business class. Now Iʻm trying to figure out if I should attempt to finish it w/ the shortened flight on Wed or make another attempt on flt 154. I think Iʻm crazy that Iʻm leaning towards the latter!

The Island Hopper travels with four pilots onboard and a mechanic. Even so, unexpected incidents like death onboard can throw the whole operation in to disarray.

CONCLUSION

United’s “Island Hopper” is a lifeline to Micronesia and the Marshall Islands. But flying a 737-800 across the Pacific is a tenuous endeavor and complications force improvisation. Passengers on UA154 on February 25th experienced a very different type of island hopper.