Australian couple Mitchell Ring and Jennifer Colin, who had travelled to Venice for a dream holiday, told Australia’s Channel 9 about the “traumatic” event of the body of a deceased passenger being placed next to them on a Qatar Airways plane, on Wednesday, the 26th of February, according to the British broadcaster BBC.
They reported that a woman died in the aisle next to them during a flight from Melbourne to Doha. The couple claim that the flight crew placed her body, covered with blankets, in the seat next to Ring for the remaining four hours of the flight, without offering him a seat, even though there were empty seats on the plane.
Ring said that staff had reacted “instantly” when the woman collapsed, but “unfortunately they were unable to save her, which was quite heartbreaking”.
He said that the crew tried to take her body to business class, “but she was quite a large woman, and they could not carry her through the aisle”.
The crew saw that there was an empty seat next to him and asked him to change seats to make room, and he agreed, and “then they put the woman in the seat I was sitting in”. While Colin was able to change to the vacant seat next to her, Ring said that the crew did not give him the opportunity to change even though there were vacant seats elsewhere.
When the plane landed four hours later, he said, passengers were asked to stay put until medical staff and police arrived. He said that the ambulance staff removed the blankets from the woman when they arrived, and he saw her face.
Colin called the experience “traumatic”
and said: “We fully understand that we cannot hold the airline responsible for the death of the poor woman, but there should be a protocol to take care of customers on board in these situations.”
“We should be contacted to make sure; do you need some support, do you need some counselling?” the couple said, arguing for the need to take care of customers and staff.
The couple said that neither Qatar Airways nor Qantas, the airline through which they booked the flight, had contacted them or offered support.
“First and foremost, our thoughts are with the family of the passenger who sadly passed away during our flight,” Qatar Airways said in a statement. “We apologise for any inconvenience and discomfort caused by this incident, and we are in the process of contacting passengers in accordance with our policies and procedures.”
“The process for resolving such incidents on board an aircraft is managed by the operating airline, which in this case is Qatar Airways,” a Qantas spokesman said.
Barry Eustance, a former Virgin Atlantic captain, said that
in-flight deaths “happen more often than people might think”, but pointed out that, as far as he knew, there was no specific protocol for such situations.
“On long-haul flights it depends very much on when and where it happens and what the crew’s options are for somewhere to put the body, because on planes there is no direct access to the cargo area, there is a crew rest area, but it is for the crew, so it can be problematic.”
He said that the toilet area or the galley area can be blocked, but the crew is obliged to provide a certain number of toilets.
Eustance said that although he was not being judgmental because he did not know the whole situation, he was surprised that the crew did not reseat Ring when there were vacant seats. He would have expected the crew to avoid placing the body next to the passenger to prevent possible trauma.
In his experience, the crew would normally try to isolate the body to protect the passengers from stress and for privacy and medical reasons.