IT probably took the tragic death of Heaton mother Davina Tavener to make most of us realise that aircraft don’t carry life-saving defibrillators.

The 47 year-old died on a flight from Lanzarote from what is thought to have been an undiagnosed heart condition. The Ryanair flight she was on didn’t carry a defibrillator that may have been able to re-start her heart and now a petition is being organised by Lostock man David Markinson calling on Ryanair to carry the equipment.

It already has 22,000 signatures and is certainly something that many local people will be concerned about in this holiday season. In America, it’s a legal requirement for defibrillators to be carried on foreign and domestic flights but this isn’t the case in the UK.

It wouldn’t take much out of all flight operators’ profits to install defibrillators in every plane – just a very small investment to save lives.