Lawsuit Claims Department of Defense Employee, 33, Suffered Fatal Incident Due to Alleged Korean Airlines Staff Error During 15-Hour Flight

A lawsuit has been filed claiming that a cherished Department of Defense employee tragically passed away on a flight from Washington DC after airline staff neglected a crucial step in her emergency care. The incident allegedly involved failing to supply oxygen to her mask during a medical crisis.

Porscha Tynisha Brown, 33, was flying on a 15-hour Korean Air journey in the spring of 2024, heading to Seoul with three friends for a vacation, when she stopped breathing mid-flight.

The suit contends that Brown succumbed to acute cardiac failure as crew members reportedly stood by without providing adequate assistance, while fellow passengers, untrained in medical emergencies, attempted to help.

The Korean Air staff are accused of not offering significant aid, leaving untrained travelers to unsuccessfully operate a defibrillator in a desperate attempt to revive her.

At one point, when the crew did intervene, they allegedly made a critical error by fitting Brown with an oxygen mask that was not connected to an oxygen tank, according to the filed lawsuit.

The complaint, seen by the Daily Mail, was filed Friday by Brown’s heartbroken relatives against Korean Air, accusing staff of violating company policy by not rendering effective aid. 

The suit, first found by the The Independent, also accuses the crew of waiting too long to declare a medical emergency, and failing to divert the plane until it was too late. 

Brown was a Maryland native employed by the DoD as a workplace safety specialist at Fort Belvoir, a US Army facility in Virginia. She received an award of excellence from her garrison commander just four days before she departed for South Korea. 

Department of Defense employee Porscha T. Brown died on board a flight from Washington, DC after airline staff made an outrageous blunder, according to a lawsuit filed by her family

Brown died on March 29, 2024, 12 hours after boarding Korean Air flight 94 from Washington Dulles International to Incheon International Airport in Seoul. 

The Maryland native was looking forward to a vacation with her three friends, who were also on board the plane, when tragedy struck. 

According to the lawsuit, her friends said she left her seat to use the restroom, and a few minutes later, a flight attendant asked over the PA whether any doctors were on board. 

Brown’s friends rushed to the back of the plane, where they found her gasping for air on the ground while repeating: ‘I can’t breathe’, per the complaint.  

‘Korean Air flight personnel handed an oxygen mask to Ms. Brown to place over her face, leading [her friends] to believe that Ms. Brown was receiving oxygen,’ the lawsuit reads.

‘Despite the mask, Ms. Brown’s belabored breathing continued and she continued to indicate… that she could not breathe.’

Several passengers tried to help as Brown lost consciousness. Flight attendants retrieved a medical kit, and passenger volunteers gave Brown a shot of epinephrine.  

Epinephrine is a form of adrenaline used to treat allergic reactions, and it did nothing to help Brown. 

Crew members then rushed over with a defibrillator and placed it on the ground, according to the complaint. 

However, despite the crew being trained in how to use it, they did not deploy the machine and provided no instructions to passengers who tried instead.  

Brown, pictured above with colleagues, was a Maryland native employed by the DoD as a workplace safety specialist at Fort Belvoir, a US Army facility in Virginia. She received an award of excellence from her garrison commander just four days before she departed for South Korea

‘Several times, and in the presence of Korean Air personnel, the… machine gave the audio command, “[S]hock advised, shock advised,” the complaint states. 

‘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 complaint states that flight attendants ‘alternated between panicking, observing and taking notes’ instead of helping Brown. 

‘At no point in time did the Korean Air flight personnel attempt to take charge of the situation, provide instructions to the volunteering passengers, or render aid to Ms. Brown,’ it alleges. 

As Brown’s life slipped away, the pilot made an emergency landing in Osaka, Japan, where she was taken to Rinku General Medical Center and pronounced dead.

The DoD employee’s Japanese death certificate listed her cause of death as ‘acute cardiac failure’, which occurs when the heart cannot pump efficiently, often due to underlying conditions like heart attacks, arrhythmias, or infections. 

Her heartbroken friends were left to figure out how to transport her remains from Japan to the US. 

They later learned that the Korean Air crew had failed to plug the oxygen mask into the oxygen tank.   

‘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,’ the complaint reads. 

The plaintiffs claim that if the flight attendants had responded as they were trained to, Brown ‘would not have experienced intense physical and emotional pain before dying at the age of 33’. 

The Daily Mail has contacted Korean Air for comment. Brown’s family is seeking monetary damages from the airline, of an amount to be determined by a jury

Attorney Hannah Crowe, who is representing Brown’s estate in the complaint, described her to The Independent as ‘a really remarkable young woman’.  

‘She was at the beginning of her young adulthood, and was a really accomplished and beloved member of her community,’ Crowe said. 

She added that airlines have stringent policies on how to respond to medical emergencies on board a plane.  

Darren Nicholson, Crowe’s co-counsel, also blasted the airline crew’s response. 

‘What is unusual about this case is that the apparent violations are so bad, it really shocks the conscience how the airline personnel handled this situation,’ Nicholson told The Independent. 

‘There were some very simple things they should have done, that they didn’t do.’

The Daily Mail has contacted Korean Air for comment. Brown’s family is seeking monetary damages from the airline, of an amount to be determined by a jury.