Australian couple forced to sit next to a dead person on a nightmarish 14-hour Qatar Airways flight
An Australian couple en route to an Italian vacation has your last travel complaint beat. A passenger died with hours left on a long flight from Australia to Qatar. Unfortunately for the couple, Qatar Airways staff put the newly dead person in the seat next to them until the airplane landed. Moreover, Qatar Airways says its staff handled the situation “appropriately and professionally.”
Following an emergency on a long-haul Qatar Airways flight, a couple had to sit next to a dead person until they landed
An Australian couple finished a 14-hour Qatar Airways flight from Melbourne, Australia to Doha, Qatar, sitting next to a dead person. Around 10 hours into the flight, a woman suffered a medical emergency. The aircraft’s staff responded, but were unable to revive the passenger.
Crew members then attempted to move the deceased passenger to business class. However, passenger Mitchell Ring described the dead traveler as a “large lady.” As such, the staff had a difficult time moving the person. Then they noticed the empty seats next to Ring and his wife, Jennifer Colin.
According to the National Post, they placed the dead person in the seat next to Ring and covered the corpse with a blanket. In an attempt to make the flight less nightmarish for Ring and Colin, staff members found Colin another seat. However, upon requesting a seat change, staff told Ring he couldn’t move. “It wasn’t nice,” Ring said succinctly.
What’s more, Qatar Airways personnel instructed Ring to remain seated after landing so emergency personnel could remove the dead woman. “Ambulance officers started pulling the blankets off the lady. I got to see her face. I can’t believe they told us to stay,” Ring said.
Qatar Airways, on the other hand, maintains that its personnel did the right thing. The Qatar-based airline says the aircraft’s crew “acted quickly, appropriately and professionally,” per NBC News.
“It is an unfortunate reality that unexpected deaths do sometimes occur on board aircraft across the aviation industry, and our crew are highly trained to deal with these situations with as much respect and dignity as possible,” Qatar Airways said in a media statement.
Qatar Airways has a point there. In 2021, approximately 460 passengers died on aircraft due to in-flight medical emergencies. As a result, the FAA requires every US flight to have an Automated External Defibrillator (AED) for cardiac events. Tragically, even with training and tools, sometimes resuscitation isn’t a possibility.
