Cabin crew are said to have waited 20 minutes before attempting to resuscitate a woman who later died on board a Qatar Airways flight to Sydney last week.
The 60-year-old, believed to be from Campbelltown in Sydney’s south-west, was traveling on Qatar Airways flight QR908 from Doha when she was found in an unresponsive state during the 14-hour journey.
Passengers Francesca and her husband Enrico, who only gave their first names for privacy reasons, revealed that after her death the flight crew “just left her there” with a blanket over her.
The airline previously said the passenger ‘couldn’t be revived’, but Francesca and Enrico, who sat in front of the woman, said ‘it didn’t feel like they (cabin crew) were doing enough’.
A 60-year-old woman, believed to be from Campbelltown in Sydney’s south-west, was traveling on Qatar Airways flight QR908 from Doha when she was found in an unconscious state. She later died (stock image)
The 60-year-old, believed to be from Campbelltown in Sydney’s south-west, was traveling on Qatar Airways flight QR908 from Doha when she was found in an unresponsive condition during the 14-hour journey (stock image)
The couple first alerted airline stewards after hearing the woman making a “strange noise.”
“It looked like she was sleeping, but she was making a really loud noise,” Francesca said.
Crews tried to wake the woman and called for other crew members who had brought an oxygen mask.
“But then they just left,” Francesca claimed.
The couple says staff told them “everything was fine.”
“You could see she wasn’t breathing,” Francesca said.
Then, Francesca claimed, another 20 minutes passed before a cabin crew member returned with another passenger to try to remove the ‘limp’ woman from her seat.
They took her to another part of the plane, where they reportedly performed CPR and used a defibrillator.
“I think she was gone at the time,” Francesca said.
Another passenger has criticized the cabin crew’s response, claiming: ‘They just left her there’
“Why didn’t they do that half an hour earlier?”
An announcement over the public address system then asked whether there were doctors on board.
Another half hour passed before the passengers behind Francesca and her husband were moved and the woman’s corpse was moved back to the row of seats and covered with a blanket.
When the plane landed, everyone was told to remain seated while emergency services tended to the dead woman.
Francesca said the airline should have handled the situation better.
“They just left her there,” she said.
Daily Mail Australia has contacted Qatar Airways for comment.