Tearful Aussie couple recall horror of sitting next to a dead passenger on a long-haul flight to Venice

An emotional Australian couple has recalled how they were forced to sit beside a dead woman for hours after she passed away on their long-haul flight.

Mitchell Ring and Jennifer Colin were on a Qatar Airways flight from Melbourne to Venice when the woman suddenly collapsed in the aisle after going to the toilet. 

She was unable to be revived despite the cabin crew’s efforts.

‘Unfortunately, the lady couldn’t be saved, which was pretty heartbreaking to watch,’ Mr Ring told A Current Affair. 

‘They went to try and move her, they brought this chair down… and they put her in the chair 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.’

Crew members noticed there were vacant seats on both sides of the couple and asked them to move over to make room for the body.

The dead woman was put beside Mr Ring, and covered in blankets for the remaining four hours of the flight to Doha.

For Ms Colin, who is a nervous flyer, the ordeal was traumatising. 

‘When my husband turned around and said, “move, move”, I was pretty shocked and I said, “are they going to put her there?”,’ she said.

Luckily, a woman with a spare seat in another row invited Ms Colin to sit with her after they claim the cabin crew failed to offer to relocate them further away from the body. 

To make matters worse, the couple was forced to wait even after the plane had touched down in Doha as police and medical officers boarded. 

Mr Ring said the crews began taking the blankets off the body and inspecting it while he and his wife were sitting there, meaning he saw the woman’s face. 

‘I can’t believe they told us to stay… it wasn’t nice,’ he said.

‘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 counselling?

‘I don’t really know how I feel and would like to speak to somebody to make sure I’m alright.’

The couple have mixed emotions about their dream holiday in Venice. 

‘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,’ Ms Colin said.

Qatar Airways has since indicated it is looking into the incident. 

The couple booked the flight through Qantas, which said it would also reach out. 

‘Ms Colin booked tickets through Qantas and travelled with Qatar Airways, a fellow Oneworld Alliance carrier,’ a Qantas spokesperson said. 

‘The process for handling incidents onboard an aircraft like this is managed by the operating airline, which in this case is Qatar Airways.’