Planes equipped with medical kits

The death of a 44-year-old woman on a flight from Haiti to New York in February, and the subsequent accusation of malfunctioning equipment, have spotlighted the issue of emergency medical care in the air.

The FAA does not have recent statistics on how often medical emergencies occur in flight, but a study of British Airways passengers, printed in the British Medical Journal in 2000, found an average of one incident for every 11,000 passengers.

The most common medical emergencies in the air: fainting or near-fainting (29 percent of cases), chest pain and cardiac problems (16 percent), asthma attacks and shortness of breath (10 percent), and allergic reactions (5 percent).

Since 1986, planes flying in the United States have been required to carry a medical kit. The FAA in 2004 ordered enhanced medical kits that contain dozens of items, including an automated defibrillator for shocking hearts, and drugs such as nitroglycerin, lidocaine and epinephrine.

Even the older kits were “useful in more than 80 percent of emergencies and occasionally lifesaving,” according to a year-long study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The study recommended only one addition: a bronchodilator, to improve air flow, since added to the kit requirements.

Crews are trained to use the equipment, but protocol also calls for them to seek medical experts on board. (Health professionals in the United States are protected from litigation in a good-Samaritan situation.)

Planes are verbally linked to medical advisers on the ground; the pilot decides whether to divert the flight.