Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t asking for the number of souls is basically asking how many people are (still) alive, as opposed to asking about the number of persons, which would also include deceased people? If someone died during the incident, given that the pilot is not a doctor with the medical authority to decide who’s alive and who isn’t, would that person still be reported as a soul?
The phrase “souls on board” derives from nautical usage. In radio comms, being brief and direct are critical. ATC requests how many living people (or not known to be dead people) are aboard in order to relay the number to search-and-rescue.
Being monosyllabic, its use in “aviationese” is a matter of economy of expression and not a political statement or invitation for handwringing. It also sidesteps potential fussy categorization along the lines of, “We have two crew and one passenger.”
In comparison with the above nine syllables, the relevant information requires two: “Tree souls.”
IMHO, "How many passengers? => 150" is very different from "How many souls? => 156" ... passengers necessarily may be interpreted as "people who paid for seats" and not include the 2 pilots and 4 flight attendants [as an example].
"A plane went down with 150 passengers, all 156 souls aboard were lost."
I guess "soul" is the universal term for "living human", regardless of their job, role, lot in life, etc.
> If someone died during the incident, given that the pilot is not a doctor with the medical authority to decide who’s alive and who isn’t
In many states (not sure how it applies to a plane in air), doctors are certainly not the only people to determine or legally declare death.
In my state EMTs and Paramedics can call death legally in many (relatively obvious) circumstances:
- rigor mortis
- livor mortis
- decapitation
- incineration
- decomposition
- body position incompatible with life
- evisceration of brain or heart
In those settings, while most would also include the attendance of a medical examiner or coroner, a physician does not have to "pronounce death".
Similarly, in resuscitation scenarios, we can discuss with a physician ECG rhythm/s found, length of resuscitation, circumstance, interventions attempted, and the physician can delegate to us the ability to discontinue resuscitation and call the time of death at that point.
Essentially it'd come into play for "mangling" that hasn't resulted in actual evisceration - entire spinal column snapped, bent at 90 degrees (as opposed to transection that leads to paralysis), head twisted around, and so on. Probably almost exclusively the result of high impact trauma.
Come on, man. No one should need this spelled out for them. Not even a kindergartener would fail to understand bodies positioned in unsurvivable poses. I'd almost surmise this to be a troll post.
Folding the head at the neck, too far in any given direction ruins the spinal cord, with out breaking the skin. If you see a person slumped in such a way that their head has clearly been badly twisted, and flops over, they are most assuredly dead.
This puts us right into breathing airway, if the neck is not supporting the trachea, or indeed folding the trachea shut, it's often apparent from a glance. But folding at the waste is just as bad for the diaphragm. When someone looks like they've been put in a stress position, and demonstrates no distress, it's likely they've expired.
In any event, instinctually, you can look at a person, know how hard it would be for you to hold a crumpled pody position, note the time while while remaining attentive for labored, heavy breathing, and if even 60 seconds pass, they might be dead.
Breathing and airway are primary obvious signs, but limbs sprawling and draped at odd angles can intuitively indicate that internal bleeding would be required for such a pose to be achieved.
There are only about 15 points of articulation on the human body, discounting fingers and toes, if you reduce the spine to the head and neck. Most people aren't escape artists or contortionists, even if they do yoga. And even contortionists, by at least some amount, exert themselves to achieve impressive poses, or fit themselves inside duffel bags and such.
Just surf the internet for pictures of dead bodies, and you'll quickly spot the ones that have mostly impossible body positions. [nsfw]
I'd wager yes. Because when the rescue team goes in they'll count bodies, living or dead. Doesn't matter if the person died before the plane landed, in a fire that erupted after it landed or made it out alive.
Airplanes do sometimes transport human remains in caskets and do not contribute to the count of souls on board. FAA Advisory Circular 150/5210-7D (Aircraft Rescue and Fire Fighting Communications)[0], for example, defines souls on board as “total number of passengers and crew.”
If the pilot says "50 souls on board", but is also transporting 2 cadavers, and the rescue team finds 50 bodies before giving up, it's possible there'd still be 2 people alive when they gave up.
Souls on board is a way of asking number of living humans on board — so there’s no confusion when asked how many are alive on the flight whether we should be including dogs, cats, parakeets or the dead guy in a cargo casket being transported.
Often times in health care, particularly insurance, reference is made to "how many belly buttons", which handles pregnancies and the like (no belly button until birth).
I'd always hear it was derived from Save Our Ship, but in reality, it's a backronym, and was chosen simply because it was easy and clear to transmit in Morse Code.
There's also the confusion between "passengers" vs "crew" vs "children" or "babies". Souls conveniently includes all of those groups and excludes irrelevant factors like dead bodies.
I doubt the pilots’ priorities during the incident is giving a casualty report. I don’t think it helps ATC land the plane any better, either. The number of people on the craft help determine the state the plane is in (weight, crewmanship/passenger ratio, etc.)
