Flight death: Woman's dead body left on plane for 10 hours surrounded by passengers after she tragically passed away mid-flight

The dead body of a passenger who tragically died mid-flight was left on a business class seat for 10 hours. The woman died in the middle of an Azul Airlines flight from Fort Lauderdale in Florida State to Belo Horizonte International Airport in Confins, Brazil, close to the city of Rio de Janeiro on 7 November.

After the eight-hour flight the body had to stay on the plane while police investigated and the coroner performed the necessary tests, local media outlets reported. It is believed that the woman’s body stayed in its place for a total of 10 hours.

Other passengers on board were only left off 40 minutes after the plane had landed at 07:05am. It was confirmed by Federal Police that the woman died due to natural causes.

The passenger’s identity has not been revealed yet by the airline or by police. Azul Airlines confirmed in a statement that a woman had become suddenly ill. The statement read: "Unfortunately, she did not survive and died during the flight, as confirmed by a doctor on board." 

Minas Gerais Civil Police also released a statement which said: "As soon as we became aware of the facts, we requested the presence of a hearse at Confins airport to take the body to the Medical-Legal Institute."

A similar situation occurred in September when a dead passenger was left on a seat surrounded by other passengers on a 14-hour Qatar Airways flight QR908 between Doha and Sydney. There was nowhere else to put the body.

According to the National Safety Council, the number of civil aviation deaths in 2021 was 376. Of these, 372 were onboard fatalities  however they said that most of these occurred in the ‘general aviation’ category, which according to the National Aviation Academy includes most types of flights outside commercial ones from private jets, transporting humanitarian goods, fighting forest fires to business or pleasure flights.