The passenger was on the Qatar Airways plane for Doha, Qatar, when she collapsed in the aisle, scenes described as “pretty heartbreaking to watch” by other shocked tourists
A woman died on a plane after collapsing in the aisle.
The passenger experienced the medical episode on the Qatar Airways plane for Doha, Qatar, and, despite the best efforts of cabin crew, she was pronounced dead.
Other passengers say the woman’s body was left under a blanket on a seat for the remaining four hours of the journey to Qatar. Mitchell Ring and Jennifer Colin, who were travelling there for a connection to Venice, described the “pretty heartbreaking” scenes as the woman died.
The couple booked the flight through Qantas, which said it will investigate the incident. Qatar Airways will also look into the episode, which reports say happened last week.
Mr Ring told A Current Affair : “Unfortunately, the lady couldn’t be saved, which was pretty heartbreaking to watch. They went to try and move her, they brought this chair down… and they put her in the chair and tried to wheel her up towards business class. But she was quite a large lady, and they couldn’t get her through the aisle.”
Crew members noticed there were vacant seats on both sides of the couple and asked them to move over to make room for the body. The dead woman was put beside Mr Ring, and covered in blankets for the remaining four hours of the flight to Doha.
For Ms Colin, who is a nervous flyer, the ordeal was traumatising. She said: “When my husband turned around and said, ‘move, move’, I was pretty shocked and I said, ‘are they going to put her there?”
A woman with a spare seat in another row invited Ms Colin to sit with her after they claim the cabin crew failed to offer to relocate them further away from the body.
To make matters worse, the couple was forced to wait even after the plane had touched down in Doha as police and medical officers boarded.
Mr Ring added: “It wasn’t nice. They have a duty of care towards their customers as well as their staff, we should be contacted to make sure, do you need some support, do you need some counselling? I don’t really know how I feel and would like to speak to somebody to make sure I’m alright.”
The couple, from Melbourne, Australia, say the incident has marred their dream holiday to Venice, where they currently remain but with nervousness about their return flights.
