Airline defends crew, equipment

American Airlines defended its staff as professional and its equipment as sound after a review of a passenger’s in- flight death, despite her family’s claims that the crew ignored her pleas until it was too late.

Carine Desir, 44, was pronounced dead Friday on a nearly full Haiti-to-New York flight by a pediatrician who said he tried to use the plane’s defibrillator on her as she faded, but her pulse was too weak for it to work.

Airline spokesman Charley Wilson said three flight attendants helped Desir, but “stepped back” after doctors and nurses on the flight began to help her.