- You can’t throw the dead body off the plane, but at least don’t make people sit next to it.
Flying can be nerve-wracking enough as it is. You don’t need something equally unexpected and horrendous to go down during the hours you’ll be trapped in the airborne tube.
Something like a person dying during the flight.
Unfortunately, that’s what happened to Mitchell Ring and Jennifer Colin. The couple had boarded a 14-hour flight from Australia to Qatar.
To be perfectly fair, the first 10 hours of the flight went perfectly well. It was the last four, however, that turned into a complete horror show.
A woman on the flight suddenly collapsed. Despite the flight crew’s best efforts at aiding her, there was nothing they could do, and she died on the spot.
That was already upsetting, but then things got worse. The crew proved unable to move the now-dead woman, so they simply propped her up on an empty seat — right next to Ring and Colin.
For some reason, they wouldn’t allow the couple to change their seats. So, they had no choice but to share the remaining for hours of the flight with a fresh corpse.
On one hand, it’s not like the crew can just throw the dead body out of the plane. But if they could get the plane on the ground for the guy who started bleeding from every orifice in his head, we’re sure there’s something they could’ve done.
The Curse of the Free Seat
Mitchell Ring and Jennifer Colin are an Australian couple. In mid-February, they finally got started on their long-awaited trip to Venice, Italy.
That’s a long way to go from Australia, though, and they required a layover. So, the couple boarded a flight from Melbourne to Doha, Qatar, where they planned to get on a plane to Italy.
The majority of their flight went without any issue. Even Colin, who’s a nervous flyer, was alright for the first 10 hours.
And then their dream holiday took a turn for the worst.
Around the 10-hour point of the flight, a female passenger on the plane went to use the bathroom. Once she got out, however, she suffered some kind of medical episode and collapsed.
As she tumbled down, she fell right next to Ring and Colin’s row. The flight crew rushed to help the lady, but there was nothing they could do.
“Unfortunately, the lady couldn’t be saved, which was pretty heartbreaking to watch,” Ring told the Australian A Current Affair show.
Like so, the woman sadly passed away. That left the flight crew puzzling what they should do with the admittedly heavy corpse.
“They tried to wheel her up toward business class, but she was quite a large lady, and they couldn’t get her through the aisle. They looked a bit frustrated,” Ring recalled.
“Then, they just looked at me and saw seats were available beside me. My wife was on the other side, we were in a row of four.”
The flight attendants asked Ring to move aside, and he obliged. They then hoisted the dead lady on to the seat next to him — and left her there, covered with a blanket.
‘I Don’t Really Know How I Feel’
According to Ring and Colin, the flight crew never offered them alternative seats. That wasn’t due to a packed flight, either.
“There were a few spare seats I could see around us,” said Ring.
Luckily, a passenger sitting behind them offered to let Colin take the free seat in that row. With that, only Ring had to spend the last four hours of the flight with the dead.
Eventually, the plane landed in Doha. Yet, Ring’s ordeal wasn’t over yet.
The flight staff told him to stay put until the dead woman was removed from the plane. Even as a medical crew showed up, pulled the blanket off the corpse, and started getting it on a stretcher, Ring could only sit and wait.
“I can’t believe they told us to stay. It wasn’t nice,” Ring said in a bit of an understatement.
The couple says that Qatar Airways, which operated the flight, offered them no support after the incident. Ring and Colin said they sure could’ve used some comforting words afterward.
“I don’t really know how I feel and would like to speak to somebody to make sure I’m alright,” Ring admitted.
For their part, Qatar Airways said it’s in the process of getting in touch with people on the flight. Meanwhile, Ring and Colin are trying to make the best of their Venice vacation — hopefully without running into more dead bodies.