- Australian couple’s Venice vacation begins with trauma as they share a row with a deceased passenger.
- Qatar Airways crew unable to move large passenger’s body to business class after mid-flight death.
- The couple was forced to remain on the aircraft while medical services attended to the deceased passenger after landing.
Air travel has a knack for producing weird and unexpected experiences, ranging from lost baggage, strange passenger requests, or even someone losing their lifetime first-class ticket mid-flight. But for an Australian couple, a dream holiday in Venice turned into a terrifying and unforgettable experience when they were forced to share their plane seat with a dead body for the last four hours of their journey.
A Mid-Flight Tragedy
Mitchell Ring and Jennifer Colin boarded their Qatar Airways flight from Melbourne for a romantic getaway and were excited for Venetian gondolas and pasta-filled evenings when tragedy occurred. During the flight, a woman collapsed in the aisle after returning from the restroom. The cabin crew hurried and started performing CPR as anxious passengers shared uneasy glances. Despite their efforts, she sadly passed away mid-flight.
Things became even more complicated when the crew tried to move her body to business class but were unable to. Ring shared the disturbing experience with A Current Affair on Channel 9: “But she was quite a large lady, and they couldn’t get her through the aisle.”
And just when they thought things couldn’t get any more surreal… they did.
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From Bad to Worse
With not many options available, flight attendants found two empty seats in the couple’s row of four. Ring was asked to move over, and before they knew it, the woman was placed right next to them, covered with a few thin blankets. Four hours. That’s how long they sat beside her.
For Ms Colin, who was a nervous flyer on a good day, the experience was particularly traumatic. “When my husband turned around and said, ‘move, move’, I was pretty shocked and I said, ‘Are they going to put her there?’” she recalled.
Finally landing in Doha should’ve brought an end to the nightmare but no such luck. Passengers were ordered to remain seated as local authorities and medical staff boarded the plane.
Mitchell and Jennifer found themselves stuck in an extended front-row seat to the investigation. “I can’t believe they made us stay,” Mitchell said and as officials examined the woman, removing the blankets, he caught a glimpse of the woman’s face leaving both, him and Jennifer, horrified.
How Common Are In-Flight Deaths?
Sitting next to someone who passes away mid-flight sounds like something out of a horror movie, and is definitely uncommon. A 2021 study in The American Journal of Emergency Medicine found that in-flight medical emergencies occurred at a rate of 18.2 events per million passengers, and deaths happened to only about 0.21 per million passengers, which is a tiny fraction.
Most medical incidents onboard involve things like breathing problems or strokes and are not as disturbing as what Mitchell and Jennifer experienced.
Qatar Airways Responds
After the story went viral, Qatar Airways confirmed it was investigating the incident and reaching out to the affected passengers. In a statement, the airline expressed condolences and emphasised that passenger welfare is a top priority.
For Ring and Colin, what was meant to be a romantic getaway in Venice began with one of the most traumatic experiences of their lives and it became a flight they will never forget for all the wrong reasons.
