Image by Getty / Futurism
During a Lufthansa flight from Bangkok to Munich, a 63-year-old passenger died after losing “liters of blood” — a tragic and horrifying scene that his fellow passengers are unlikely to forget any time soon.
According to Swiss publication Blick, the passenger already looked ill upon boarding the Airbus A380 and was reportedly experiencing “cold sweats” and was “breathing much too quickly.”
After the man’s wife notified a flight attendant of his worsening condition, the captain checked in on him, calling for the help of a doctor over the PA system.
After takeoff, the man was given a chamomile tea, but started spitting blood into an airsickness bag. Then all hell broke loose, with prodigious quantities of blood pouring from his nose and mouth.
“It was absolute horror, everybody was screaming,” fellow passenger Karin Missfelder told Blick in German.
Despite attempting CPR for around 30 minutes, the captain later announced that the man had passed away.
“It was dead silent on board,” Missfelder recalled.
The Airbus eventually returned to Bangkok, where the man’s body was carried off the plane.
Lufthansa told Blick that it had no further details as to the cause of the man’s death.
“Our thoughts are with the relatives of the deceased passenger,” a Lufthansa spokesperson told the New York Post in a statement. “We also regret the inconvenience caused to the passengers of this flight.”
According to flight records, the plane left Bangkok at 11:50 pm local time and landed at the same location at 8:28 am the next day.
In the case of a death on board a commercial airliner, the International Air Transport Association recommends that airlines move the affected person to a seat with few other passengers nearby, putting them in a body bag if available or covering them with a blanket.
The body also has to be restrained with a seat belt.
Flight attendant Sheena Marie, whose 2021 TikTok video about the subject went viral in 2021, told Business Insider at the time that a death can cause a plane to be taken out of service for both investigation and cleaning, with carpets sometimes needing to be replaced.
Fortunately, a death on board a commercial jet is extremely rare. According to Conde Nast Traveler, there’s only around one medical emergency for every 600 flights, and fewer still result in a death.
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