The couple was on a Qatar Airways flight from Australia to Qatar. The airline apologized for the incident in a statement.

Summary

A couple on a Qatar Airways flight from Melbourne to Doha was forced to sit next to a deceased passenger for four hours after she collapsed and died mid-flight.

The flight crew moved the woman’s body to an empty seat beside them and denied their request to change seats.

Qatar Airways apologized but did not offer the couple support after the incident.

The couple, en route to Venice, criticized the airline’s handling of the situation but are trying to continue their trip despite the distressing experience.

  • celeste
    3•6 hours ago

    I wonder if it’s one of those kinds of deaths that just makes the local paper unless they take out a lot of people with them.

    https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7847085/ article discussing 21 fatal heart attacks while driving during a period of time in china

    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23343022/ article discussing the results of the Finnish Road Accident Investigation Teams (RAITs) on fMVAs in Finland during 2008-2009. 11% of these were because of “disease attack.”

    Severe injuries may mask the role of an initial disease attack.

    These articles make it seem like unless there’s careful investigation after the fact, it’s very difficult to know for sure if illness caused the accident.

    So it probably is a daily occurance, depending on how many fatal accidents happen in your country. (and depending on a million other factors, most likely)