April 28, 2023, was a usual day for John William Cannon, who was en route to attend his best friend’s daughter’s wedding in Colorado. At around 12:30 p.m. local time, he boarded the American Airlines flight 1444 from Louisville, Kentucky, to Dallas-Fort Worth. He was scheduled to catch a connecting flight to Durango from there. However, little did he know that his life would end before he got to attend the event he was looking forward to.
The 62-year-old Kentucky resident suffered a fatal heart attack, and his family blamed the American Airlines crew for his death. His side alleges that the flight crew failed to call for help until after the plane landed. All the other passengers were then disembarked, but it was already too late for Cannon. His son filed a wrongful death suit in Denver County District Court initially. On Tuesday (April 22, 2025), it was moved to the Denver federal court.
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According to the suit, the man fainted and collapsed on the jetway. The airline’s employees helped him back to his feet but only two minutes later, sent him off to catch his Colorado-bound connection flight from Dallas-Fort Worth. According to the lawsuit, during his flight to Durango, Cannon “entered a stage of medical crisis which resulted in him becoming unresponsive.”
“Despite Mr. Cannon’s escalating medical crisis, the… flight crew delayed requesting medical assistance until after the aircraft had landed, taxied to the gate, and all other passengers had deplaned,” the complaint added. It continues that one of the crew members informed the emergency dispatchers that the man was “in and out of consciousness with labored breathing.”
After the plane landed, Firefighters arrived first on the scene and gave him oxygen while waiting for medics. Cannon’s son’s lawsuit further states that he was then removed from the aircraft and loaded into an ambulance. However, in the back seat, he went into ventricular fibrillation arrest. According to the Mayo Clinic, it was one of the most frequent causes of sudden cardiac death.
The wrongful death suit explains, “The ambulance crew performed approximately ten minutes of chest compressions, administered two doses of epinephrine, and delivered multiple Automated External Defibrillator (AED) shocks.” EMTs rushed him to Mercy Medical Center in Durango, Colorado. However, it was already late for John, who was pronounced dead at 1:29 a.m. the following morning.
Joseph LoRusso, who is representing the Cannon family in court, lamented, “How long does it take to deboard an airplane? 20, 30 minutes? That’s critical time.” On Wednesday, speaking with The Independent, the attorney, who is also a commercial airline-rated pilot, said, “Nobody’s expecting a flight attendant to be a doctor, but you have to at least attempt a recovery.”
🇺🇸AMERICAN AIRLINES: “IS HE DYING? COOL, LET’S FINISH DEPLANING FIRST”
John Cannon collapsed mid-flight. The crew? They apparently decided it wasn’t urgent until the last passenger was off the plane.
According to a lawsuit, they sat on a medical emergency through landing,… https://t.co/SXlQLtJsNj pic.twitter.com/XVugYt0Stn
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) April 24, 2025
He noted that since 2004, all commercial airlines have been required to carry defibrillators on board and the cabin crews are trained in CPR. LaRusso described this lack of urgency in assistance as “unbelievably frustrating.”
“It’s important for crews to realize that if someone’s in a medical crisis, they’re well within their rights to say, ‘We’re not going to board you’,” the attorney for Cannons complained that American Airlines should have never allowed him to get on his connection flight from Dallas.
“If somebody has labored breathing, in what world would you put him in an airliner, in a cabin pressurized up to 8,000, 9,000 feet? That’s crazy.”
The wrongful death lawsuit accuses the airline of negligently failing to deny boarding to an individual in a medical crisis. In addition, it also charges the company for failing to give reasonable first aid onboard, failing to pay appropriate attention to his condition, failing to prioritize, and failing to take reasonable steps to turn Cannon over to a physician in an urgent manner.
“The ultimate goal of any lawsuit is to make things safer in the future,” said Jessica McBryant, the co-counsel for the Cannon family’s lawsuit.
“While this case is about John Cannon and his family, we want American Airlines to… hold people accountable for what happened so it doesn’t happen again.” McBryant noted that if things were carried out in a different manner, the 62-year-old would “probably” have lived.
Amid the legal battle, in an email, a spokesperson for American Airlines said, “We are reviewing the compliant.” Meanwhile, John Cannon’s family is seeking unspecified damages for suffering, bereavement, and mental anguish, among other things.
