Amsterdam
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On a Monday morning in early September, Ben Vos’s cellphone rings at 5 a.m., marking a notably early begin to his week. The name is from air site visitors management at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, informing Vos that a passenger on a flight from Asia has died en path to the Netherlands.
And thus, the method he oversees a whole lot of instances a 12 months — managing autopsy take care of vacationers who cross away overseas or, on this case, onboard — begins anew for Vos, who’s mortuary coordinator at Mortuarium Schiphol, or Schiphol Mortuary, situated exterior the airport’s sprawling pre-security retail and eating space.
Following the flight’s 6 a.m. arrival, Vos will accompany a consultant of the Koninklijke Marechaussee, the Netherlands company that handles border management, onto the plane after passengers have disembarked. Also current would be the coroner, who will make a preliminary analysis for explanation for dying as a coronary heart assault. Vos and the Marechaussee agent will then place the deceased passenger into a physique bag for elimination off the plane — by way of a rear emergency exit, behind the wings — and to the mortuary, which has an airside door.
“There’s a special vehicle that comes right to the plane. We can go out of the plane and directly into the vehicle, so lots of people don’t see what we do at the airport,” he explains.
Ensuring most privateness and respect for the deceased is a large a part of the job for Vos. Equally important is supporting the bereaved, who are sometimes struggling not solely with grief however the overwhelming actuality of a state of affairs many vacationers don’t give a second thought to when planning their subsequent trip: What happens if they die overseas?
Vos and his crew of three at Schiphol Mortuary are specifically skilled to deal with that very course of, which in business phrases is named repatriation of mortal stays, or RMR. Every division on the airport has “the small details covered,” says Vos, and his crew isn’t any exception.
While it’s not unusual for airports to have morgues or chilly storage capabilities onsite, full-service services devoted to dying care are a lot rarer. MOS, because the mortuary is understood, turned the primary such providing when it started operations in 1997 at Schiphol, now Europe’s second-busiest airport.
In 2017, MOS moved to its present location, separated from a few of Schiphol’s departure gates by a barbed wire fence. It’s behind the CitizenM airport resort, the place suitcase-toting friends typically pause for a nearer have a look at the neighboring constructing upon noticing the all-caps signage: MORTUARIUM SCHIPHOL.
Beyond its understated facade, which has vertical strips of wooden and strategically positioned home windows, the roughly 9,700-square-foot facility comprises all the weather of a funeral residence: an embalming room, chilly storage, an space to clean our bodies earlier than burial, as is customized in sure religions and cultures, and a viewing room with a round skylight. In the small atrium, a single tree reaches towards the sky.
In a separate lounge space, a few couches line the partitions, with a number of round tables and chairs all through the room. On the tables, pitchers of water sit alongside vases of synthetic flowers. “We have flowers for spring and summer, and then autumn and winter,” says Vos.
While the mortuary’s impartial design aesthetic affords a soothing surroundings for the bereaved, its performance is particularly designed to deal with the complicated logistics of RMR. The airside door streamlines the method of transporting the deceased from the plane to the mortuary — a journey of simply a few hundred yards, with no extra safety clearances.
The facility can accommodate 36 our bodies in its refrigeration models, that are stored at round 39 levels Fahrenheit (slightly below 4 levels Celsius) — although as a part of the airport’s disaster plan, capability could be elevated to 400.
“You are mitigating a possibility of decomposition of the deceased — that’s the first thing,” says Emerson De Luca, govt secretary for the World Organization of Funeral Operatives (FIAT-IFTA). “This is a facility dedicated to human remains. In terms of dignity for the deceased and respect for the deceased and their family, it is quite important and unique. It is a very, very good setup.”
Vos and his crew are adept at navigating RMR, with its strict paperwork and protocols. They obtain deceased people in transit from different nations and put together others for flights out of the Netherlands (or to funeral houses or services of the household’s selecting inside a practically 1,000-mile driving distance). They collaborate with docs, airline and airport workers, medical experts and authorities companies, together with embassies, to acquire dying certificates and customs declarations. They coordinate with embalming groups — many nations, together with the US, require embalming for RMR — in addition to arranging the donation of sure organs (elimination of eyes and pores and skin is carried out on-site, whereas the method for inner organs is finished at a medical facility). While MOS doesn’t have cremation services, it may put households in contact with firms that provide the service.
The enterprise stays open across the clock, with not less than two staff on website always, as a result of dying not often accommodates schedules. “It’s 24-7,” says Vos, who’s accustomed to answering his cell phone in any respect hours. “It never stops.”
MOS oversees about 2,500 repatriations yearly, working in tandem with sibling firm Post Mortem Repatriation — each are subsidiaries of Netherlands-based ZDG. The determine consists of Dutch residents who die overseas and are returned to the Netherlands, and overseas nationals who die within the Netherlands and are despatched again to their nations of origin, or to different locations overseas.
While international figures aren’t available, the variety of Dutch holidaymakers who die overseas has elevated considerably in recent times.
In 2024, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs supplied consular help for 1,275 deaths of Dutch citizens abroad. The whole quantity, nevertheless, is probably going increased, as that determine solely represents circumstances by which consular help was sought.
Over the years, Vos has seen some refined patterns. Winter, for instance, is a “very busy time,” he explains, as a result of many vacationers go snowboarding, whereas seniors have a tendency to go to warm-weather nations. “Lots of Dutch citizens are going to Spain, to Portugal, but they are old and they pass away there,” he says.
MOS additionally handles autopsy take care of in-flight fatalities — such because the passenger who died getting back from Asia. They just lately additionally coordinated with a native funeral residence following the dying of a person who died whereas on the job at Schiphol.
Vos and his crew are effectively versed in numerous mourning rituals and customs, and work alongside monks, rabbis, imams and Schiphol’s Airport Chaplaincy, whereas supporting bereaved folks from cultures across the globe. In the lounge space, a curtain hanging from the ceiling can separate women and men throughout funeral ceremonies, in keeping with some non secular beliefs.
For Vos, a few of the most memorable ceremonies occur for people from Suriname, a South American nation and former Dutch colony. In accordance with Afro-Suriname custom, dying rituals embrace washing the deceased, a process dealt with by what are often known as “last offices associations:” organizations of Afro-Surinamese volunteers throughout the Netherlands. Afterward, household, buddies and different family members partake in hours-long affairs full with music and libations at MOS.
“There are bands with trumpets and drums,” says Vos. “They’re singing, they’re crying, but they’re laughing and they’re drinking. They come in the morning, at 10 o’clock, and maybe it takes four or five hours.” They have fun the individual’s life and honor their dying, he explains. “It’s so nice to see.”
No worldwide regulation governs the method of transporting human stays throughout worldwide borders. Instead, numerous airline guidelines, business requirements, and well being rules — each within the nation the place the person died, and of their closing vacation spot — all play a position. However, in 1937, the primary multinational pact to set requirements for the observe was established: the International Arrangement concerning the Conveyance of Corpses.
Also often known as the Berlin Agreement, it created a normal journey doc for the deceased often known as a laissez-passer — typically often known as a “mortuary passport” — that features key data resembling full title and explanation for dying. It additionally established guidelines for coffins, together with minimal thickness and the requirement for a watertight seal. In 1973, the Council of Europe up to date and simplified the Berlin Agreement, which resulted within the Agreement on the Transfer of Corpses (Strasbourg Agreement).
Elements such because the laissez-passer are nonetheless in use, although these days the aviation business follows protocols and guidelines set by the International Air Transport Association — most notably the Manual for Compassionate Travel, which was first launched in 2019.
Developed in coordination with FIAT-IFTA and different funeral business organizations, the handbook, which prices about $167, is up to date yearly and consists of country-specific necessities for RMR and different protocols for funeral business professionals. In accordance with many authorities rules, IATA’s pointers embrace putting the deceased in a hermetically sealed bag — up to now, zinc-lined coffins, that are heavier and costlier, have been generally used.
MOS can present coffins. About a dozen plain caskets — some made with poplar, others from chipboard — stand in opposition to the wall within the again room of the mortuary. When it involves incoming caskets, all MOS staff have air cargo safety authorization — this implies they’re allowed to conduct the requisite safety checks on coffins to verify they include solely the deceased and no contraband.
In the ultimate steps earlier than a deceased individual leaves MOS, paperwork is checked once more, and Vos or a member of his crew closes the coffin.
It is then sealed with a purple wax stamp that includes the mortuary’s personal design, which additionally serves to point that every one paperwork is so as. If the physique is to be flown, a MOS worker encases the coffin in thick black plastic wrap, which serves each to guard it and to make its contents as inconspicuous as doable throughout its journey to and from the cargo maintain.
RMR is dear, although prices differ extensively. According to De Luca, a typical vary is between 5,000 and 10,000 euros (between $5,800 and $17,600).
Reputable journey insurance coverage firms will often cowl the prices of RMS claims. That mentioned, it’s all the time useful to take a look at the tremendous print to verify your coverage consists of RMR, which can fall beneath the broader advantage of medical transport, notes Jeff Rolander, vice chairman of claims and buyer expertise at Faye, a US-based journey insurance coverage supplier.
“This benefit may fall under that larger medical transport benefit, or it may stand alone,” Rolander explains. “But typically, yes, repatriation of remains is the terminology that you want to look for.”
Industry consultants additionally advise vacationers to honestly disclose their medical historical past on insurance coverage functions and paperwork.
“There are unfortunately claims that are denied because people didn’t disclose pre-existing medical conditions,” says Brett Wheatley, group govt chairman for Global 24 Advisory and Assistance, an emergency medical help firm with headquarters in Australia and Thailand. “I think it’s important that people understand exactly what they bought, what their entitlements are, and what could actually cause a policy not to deliver in the event of a major incident.”
Not surprisingly, Vos’s line of labor has helped make him a sturdy proponent for journey insurance coverage. “I always say get travel insurance before you go traveling all over the world,” he says.
While many days on the job comply with a comparable sample for Vos and his crew, exceptions often happen. One is repatriation for deceased asylum seekers who might not have a passport or different identification, or for people from nations with extremely restrictive governments.
Repatriations to Russia, for instance, often take for much longer due to embassy approvals and paperwork, which is costlier and sophisticated, Vos says. Factor within the ongoing restrictions on Russian airspace, and the whole course of can require 10 to 12 days, in comparison with the two-to-three-day period that’s the norm for a lot of nations.
“They want all the documents translated into Russian,” Vos explains. “It costs a lot of money. [Just] the embassy is 600 euros ($700), to translate the documents is 400 euros ($465), so that’s 1,000 euros ($1,163) on only the paperwork.”
Then there are the events by which murder or foul play is suspected. MOS additionally has an post-mortem room strictly utilized by forensic investigators; often, journalists have proven up on the mortuary in hopes of uncovering new leads. In one current high-profile case involving the dying of Dutch residents overseas, Vos remembers, “I believe there were 200 people here at the door.”
In such situations, he contacts the Marechaussee for help in dispersing crowds from the premises: “When I call, they come in two minutes.”
Social media can also pose challenges sometimes. In accordance with ZDG’s general advertising and marketing technique, MOS has a TikTok account, which incorporates a dozen movies exhibiting MOS staff at work: receiving our bodies, sealing coffins, placing the deceased in chilly storage. In the movies, no figuring out data, resembling paperwork, faces, or clothes, is proven. In the feedback, many customers categorical real curiosity and gratitude.
However, some movies induced a stir in late 2024 when a number of of them that includes a former MOS worker who additionally appeared on the Netherlands model of the truth present “Love Island” went viral. That led to crowds of gawking onlookers coming to the mortuary for a real-life peek at what they’d seen on-line.
As a outcome, Vos discovered himself once more enjoying the position of safety guard. “I told them that this is not Efteling,” he says, referring to an amusement park within the southern Netherlands.
Indeed, Vos has seen lots since he began working within the funeral business in 1990. After promoting his personal firm, which specialised in constructing customized bogs, he started doing part-time work as a chauffeur for weddings and funerals, earlier than becoming a member of MOS and dealing his means up the ranks.
Throughout these 35 years, Vos says the perfect praise he can obtain comes with the data that he and his workers have helped make what’s typically essentially the most troublesome second in many individuals’s lives a little much less onerous.
“This gives you a great feeling, when you have finished the job with the deceased person and [their] family,” he says. “When everything’s done well, that’s the satisfaction.”