A Department of Defense employee died mid-flight after a panicked cabin crew forgot to attach her mask to an oxygen tank and failed to provide live-saving instructions on how to use a defibrillator, a lawsuit alleges.
Porscha Tynisha Brown, 33, was flying with her friends from Washington, DC, to Seoul, South Korea, last year when 12 hours into the 15.5-hour Korea Air flight when she suffered a medical episode and lost consciousness, sparking a chaotic scene onboard.
Brown’s friends and other passengers rushed over to help but the flight attendants, who provided an oxygen mask, “alternated between panicking, observing and taking notes,” according to the complaint, obtained by the Independent.
The plane diverted to Osaka, Japan, and Brown, a civilian employee with the DoD, was declared dead from “acute cardiac failure,” according to her death report.
“Only after the flight made its emergency landing did [Brown’s travel companions] learn that the Korean Air flight personnel had never plugged the oxygen mask into the oxygen tank,” the complaint alleges.
“Consequently, during the frantic attempts by passengers to save Ms. Brown’s life, Ms. Brown never received supplemental oxygen from the oxygen tank provided by Korean Air flight personnel.”
If the crew had followed its own protocols, Brown “would not have experienced intense physical and emotional pain before dying at the age of 33,” the complaint, filed on March 24, says.
Brown, who had been feeling fine, had gotten up to use the bathroom during the March 24, 2025, flight. Moments later, a flight attendant asked if there was a doctor on board as a commotion erupted in the back of the plane.
Brown’s friends ran to the back and found her sprawled on the ground gasping for air and clutching her chest, repeatedly saying, “I can’t breathe.”
Crew members handed Brown an oxygen mask to place over her face. Her friends believed she was receiving the vital air, but Brown’s “belabored breathing continued and she continued to indicate… that she could not breathe” before she went unconscious.
Passenger volunteers gave Brown a shot of epinephrine, which did not help, and crew members brought over a defibrillator. But while the crew members were all trained in how to use the life-saving device, none of them provided instructions to passengers, according to the complaint.
“The passengers, who were not trained on the… machine, did not know that they needed to press the ‘shock’ button to administer a shock. Consequently, no lifesaving shock was administered to Ms. Brown,” the suit says.
After Brown was declared dead in Japan, her grieving friends had to figure out how to get her body back to the US.
Korean Air’s crew violated company policy by not rendering effective aid and waited too long to declare a medical emergency, according to the complaint.
“She was at the beginning of her young adulthood, and was a really accomplished and beloved member of her community,” attorney Hannah Crowe, who is representing Brown’s estate in the suit, told The Independent.
Brown’s family is seeking damages from Korean Air, to be determined by a jury.
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