Southwest Airlines flight forced to turn around mid-air after human heart found on board

Someone forgot to unload the human heart before the Dallas-bound flight took off

The Southwest flight had 'life-critical cargo' on board (Wikipedia/Eric Salard)

A Southwest Airlines flight to Dallas was forced to turn around and return to Seattle after its flight crew discovered a human heart on board.

Southwest Flight 3606 landed in Seattle from Sacramento, California, before an onward flight to Dallas. A couple hours after the departure from Seattle, the on-board flight crew realised someone forgot to unload a “life-critical cargo shipment,” or a human heart, from the plane before it departed for Dallas.

The pilot announced to passengers, while flying over Idaho, that the aircraft will turn around and head back to Seattle so the organ could be “delivered to its destination within the window of time allotted.”

Human hearts are only viable for transplant for a number of hours.

The human heart was supposed to be sent to a Seattle-area hospital. Although no hospital in the Seattle area said they were involved, the Associated Press reported.

Those on the flight were in shock but “happy to save a life,” passenger Dr. Andrew Gottschalk told the Seattle Times.

However that was not the end of the issues. Once the plane landed in Seattle, a “mechanical issue” rendered the aircraft out of service and another was brought in to complete the flight to Dallas.

The whole ordeal led to a five-hour delay for passengers on that flight.

Southwest Airlines has already expressed their sincerest apologies for the whirlwind of a journey.

“We sincerely regret the inconvenience to the customers impacted by the delay, and we are following up with them with a gesture of goodwill to apologise for the disruption to their travel,” a spokesperson said.

“Nothing is more important to us than the safety of our customers and the safe delivery of the precious cargo we transport every day,” they added.