Image showing a flight. For representational purposes.
Credit: iStock Photo
Mitchell Ring and Jennifer Colin were aboard a Qatar Airways flight to Venice, Italy from Melbourne, Australia on February 22, when their journey took an unexpected turn. They were made to sit next to a dead body.
A woman on board the flight collapsed in the aisle beside them and could not be revived despite efforts made by the cabin crew and died on the spot, as per a report by news.com.au.
"Unfortunately, the lady couldn't be saved, which was pretty heartbreaking to watch," said Ring.
Cabin crew members were unable to move the deceased woman's body to the business class.
Ring and Colin recount that the flight was not full and had several empty seats. The couple were seated alone in a four row isle which prompted the cabin crew to ask Ring to move down the row to the empty seats and then placed the deceased woman next to them. The couple were made to sit next to the deceased passenger's body for nearly four hours until they landed in Venice.
Ring said, "They looked a bit frustrated and then they just looked at me and saw seats were available beside me - my wife was on the other side, we're in a row of four by ourselves - and they just said to me, 'Can you move over, please?'"
Colin admitted that she is a nervous flyer and 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?'"
According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA) guidelines when a person dies mid-flight, the body should be placed in a seat “with few other passengers nearby” and covered with a body bag or blanket.
A passenger from another row offered Colin an empty seat next to them. However Ring did not have the same luck and was left sitting next to the deceased woman's body wrapped in a blanket with her head left uncovered.
International guideline also state that unless a flight is full, meaning all seats are occupied, in the event of a medical emergency or incident aboard the aircraft, should there be any seats unoccupied, the airline cabin crew must offer the empty seat(s) to the passenger(s) if they wish to move.
The couple claimed that there were several empty seats in the flight, the crew did not offer to relocate them to another seat.
The experience was made worse when even after landing the couple were asked to remain in their seat till the emergency service officials removed the body.
“They told us in our area to stay in our seats, and then the ambulance officers and the police came in, and then the ambulance officers started pulling the blankets off,” Mitch said
“I was there and I got to see her face. Yeah, it wasn’t nice,” he added “I can’t believe they told us to stay. I thought they would have got us out quickly and let the ambulance and the police in there with no other people in there. But they told us to sit down and wait."
When the harrowing ordeal of the couple went viral Qatar Airways apologised and said they would look into the incident.