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