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Events from Jun 19th 1999 to Sep 22nd 2020 www.avherald.com Incidents and News in Aviation List by: Filter: Incident: Southwest B737 near Seattle on Dec 9th 2018, heartfelt return

By Simon Hradecky, created Thursday, Dec 13th 2018 22:55Z, last updated Friday, Dec 14th 2018 22:33Z A Southwest Boeing 737-700, registration N7726A performing flight WN-3606 from Seattle,WA to Dallas Love,TX (USA), was enroute at FL370 about 490nm southeast of Seattle when the crew was informed a human heart intended for a hospital in Seattle had not been unloaded in Seattle. The crew decided to turn around and return to Seattle to deliver the heart to the hospital, although with some delay. The aircraft landed safely back about 2.5 hours after departure.



Due to an unrelated technical issue on the ground the aircraft was unable to depart again.



The airline reported they made the decision to return to Seattle as it was absolutely necessary to deliver the shipment to its destination.



A replacement Boeing 737-700 registration N264LV reached Dallas with a delay of about 8 hours.



The occurrence aircraft returned to service about 14 hours after landing back.



On Dec 14th 2018 it became known that the heart was intended for a tissue bank and had to be processed within 48 hours after the patient's death, no patient was waiting to receive the organ. The heart was planned to arrive at the tissue bank with 15 hours left to process the heart, due to the delay the heart arrived with 12 hours left and could successfully be processed. The bank said, the four valves of the heart were to be used in future surgical procedures.



https://flightaware.com/live/flight/SWA3606/history/20181209/2315Z/KSEA/KDAL







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