A shaken couple revealed they had to sit next to the body of another passenger after a woman on their plane died mid-flight.
Mitchell Ring and Jennifer Colin were on a Qatar Airways flight from Melbourne to Doha on their way to their vacation in Venice, Italy when a woman onboard “collapsed” and died, they said in an interview with Australian news show A Current Affair.
“(It) was pretty heartbreaking to watch,” Ring said of the incident.
“They went to try and move her, they brought this chair down … and tried to wheel her up towards business class, but she was quite a large lady and they couldn’t get her through the aisle,” he recounted on the news program.
The couple told the show that the flight crew members then placed the woman’s body in a vacant seat next to them.
“They said, ‘Can you move over please?’ and I just said, ‘Yes, no problem,’” Ring recalled.
“Then they placed the lady in the chair I was in.”
The couple claimed that the cabin crew told them they had to remain in their seats next to the body, which had been covered with a blanket, for the remaining four hours of the flight.
“There were a few spare seats I could see around us. I can’t believe they told us to stay … it wasn’t nice,” Ring noted.
The date of the disturbing flight is unclear but it appears the couple spoke to the show on Feb. 24 during their holiday.
The couple said that they booked their flight through Australian airline Qantas.
“The process for handling incidents onboard an aircraft like this is managed by the operating airline, which in this case is Qatar Airways,” the company said.
At the time, Qatar said they were looking into the incident but issued a new statement on Friday that began with their condolences to the family of the passenger who passed away.
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“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,” the Qatar spokesperson said.
“After an internal review, it is clear that Qatar Airways cabin crew acted quickly, appropriately and professionally at all times in line with training and industry standard practice.”
Qatar, however, insisted that “passengers were accommodated to other seats” while a crew member “was sitting at all times with the deceased passenger for the duration of the flight” until it reached Doha.
The airline also contradicted Ring and Colin’s claims that they have offered support and compensation to the family of the deceased passenger as well as other travellers who were “directly affected” by the tragic incident.
The couple previously said they did not receive any support or offered counselling following the flight.
“They have a duty of care towards their customers as well as their staff, we should be contacted to make sure — do you need some support, do you need some counseling?” Ring told the news show.
“I don’t really know how I feel and would like to speak to somebody to make sure I’m alright.”
Colin, on the other hand, described the experience as “traumatic,” adding, “I’m trying to make the best of a pretty hard situation, but, you know, we’re on holiday so we’re really trying to have a good time.”