A flight from Thailand descended into scenes of “absolute horror” this week as a 63-year-old German man died mid-flight after he began to spit up “litres of blood”, witnesses said.
A Lufthansa Airbus flight from Bangkok to Munich took a tragic turn on Thursday as a German man died mid-flight after exhibiting signs of illness before takeoff. Speaking to the German-Swiss newspaper Blick, fellow travellers, a nursing specialist from the University Hospital in Zurich and her husband, Karin and Martin Missfelder, said the 63-year-old man had “cold sweats and was breathing too much, too quickly” before takeoff.
After being inspected by a doctor on the plane as well as the captain, it was determined that he was fit enough to travel after his Filipina wife explained that they had to run to catch the flight and were out of breath.
“They then gave him a little chamomile tea, but he already spit blood into the bag that his wife held out to him,” said Martin Missfelder.
As they took to the air, the man’s condition dramatically declined and blood began to pout out of his mouth and nose. Missfelder said that the man lost “litres of blood” and that the walls were covered in blood, saying: “It was absolute horror, everyone was screaming.”
Flight attendants attempted to aid the man, said nursing specialist Karin Missfelder, who described their attempts at resuscitation as “unfortunately a bit amateurish” that lasted about half an hour, adding: “It was dead quiet on board.”
Horror auf Flug von Bangkok – Mann stirbt https://t.co/Cr8YD5B7jZ
— Blick (@Blickch) February 9, 2024
Their attempts ultimately failed and the man died. He was carried into the galley area of the plane by attendants and the captain announced to the passengers that the man was dead and that they were flying back to Bangkok to unload his body.
“The man looked so bad, I don’t understand why the captain took off. I should have intervened, but I saw that a doctor was looking after him, so I didn’t want to get involved,” Karin said.
Martin said that the chaos continued as they arrived back in the Thai capital, saying that “nobody cared about us, we waited two hours. There was no care team there, nobody. We all had to go to a counter, where we received a 10-franc voucher.” He added that the wife of the deceased man was left unattended as they all were forced to go through customs again.
“The fact that Lufthansa has no measures in this case, that no one cares about around 30 traumatised passengers around, is unacceptable,” he said, calling on the German airline to apologise to all the passengers, particularly the wife of the man who died.
Lufthansa confirmed the death but said that policy requires that “no further details” will be provided.
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