"Bags fly free" on Southwest Airlines, but evidently human heads do not.
Four embalmed heads and 40 partial skulls did not make their Southwest flight to Dallas' Love Field last week because the package did not have the correct paperwork.
"We received a cargo shipment for transport that was not labeled or packaged properly, and when our Little Rock employees investigated and found the contents, they contacted local authorities," Southwest spokeswoman Ashley Dillon said.
The medical specimens were destined for the Fort Worth office of Medtronic, a medical device manufacturer, and were dropped off at Southwest's cargo facility at Little Rock's airport on June 9. The body parts are now at the county coroner's office in Arkansas.
Federal law generally prohibits the sale of human body parts, but they can be supplied and used for medical education or research.
Dillon said Southwest has policies for transporting human remains, which are placed in a separate cargo bin and must be packaged correctly.
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