Couple forced to sit next to corpse for 4 hours after woman dies mid-flight

David Matthews, New York Daily News on Feb 25, 2025

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A married couple was forced to sit next to a dead body for roughly four hours after a woman died in the middle of an international flight.

Mitchell Ring and Jennifer Colin were flying from Melbourne, Australia to Doha, Qatar, on Qatar Airways last week when a woman collapsed and died after exiting a restroom about 10 hours into the 14-hour trip, they told Australia’s Channel 9 earlier this week.

“They did everything they could, but unfortunately the lady couldn’t be saved, which was pretty heartbreaking to watch,” Ring said.

According to the couple, the crew attempted to take the woman away in a wheelchair but were unable to get her through the aisle because of her size. Ring said the crew noticed that he and his wife were alone in a row of four seats, so they put the woman’s body — covered in blankets — in an empty seat near them for the remaining four hours of the flight.

“They said, ‘Can you move over please?’ and I just said, ‘Yes, no problem.’ Then they placed the lady in the chair I was in,” Ring explained.

The couple said they were not allowed to change seats and had to remain seated (along with all of the other passengers) after landing so that medical staff could tend to the dead woman.

“There were a few spare seats I could see around us. I can’t believe they told us to stay,” Ring said. “Then the ambulance officers started pulling the blankets off the lady right beside me. I was there and I got to see her face, yeah…it wasn’t nice.”

Qatar Airways said in a statement it was sorry “for any inconvenience or distress this incident may have caused, and are in the process of contacting passengers in line with our policies and procedures.”

The couple, who were ultimately headed to Venice, Italy, said they were trying to get past the incident without it ruining their vacation.

“I’m trying to make the best of a pretty hard situation, but, you know, we’re on holidays so we’re really trying to have a good time,” Colin said.

According to the American Journal of Emergency Medicine, in-flight medical emergencies and deaths are rare with a mortality rate of 0.21 deaths per million passengers.

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