Passenger sat with body for 3 hours on plane

Passengers on a plane to Russia were forced to sit with a dead body for three hours after a woman died suddenly mid-flight.

The body of the female passenger was covered with a blanket and placed in the aisle between two rows of seats on the flight. Photo: CEN

The 50-year-old woman, who suffered from diabetes, died 45 minutes after the Azur Air flight took off from Türkiye to Russia, the Mirror reported yesterday.

According to her husband, she had just injected insulin an hour before the flight and left the medicine in her checked baggage. They could not have expected her condition to suddenly worsen mid-flight. She is also believed to have suffered acute heart failure leading to sudden death.

The crew of the Boeing 757 decided to place the female passenger's body along the aisle and cover it with a blanket, while the captain flew straight to Moscow instead of making an emergency landing.

Sudden mid-flight deaths are rare, but major airlines have plans in place to deal with them. Some crews will move the body to an empty seat in the front row or in the business class. Larger planes even have lockers to store the body.

According to VNE