Passenger dies after bleeding ‘several liters’ during flight

A 63-year-old passenger died after coughing up ‘several liters’ of blood on a German airline Lufthansa flight from Bangkok to Munich.

Flight LH 773 was scheduled to depart Bangkok for the capital of the German state of Bavaria at 11.40pm on Thursday (February 8).

After 90 minutes in the air, the plane had to be diverted when a German national on board was declared dead.

According to a fellow passenger, several liters of blood came out of the man’s mouth and nose. Karen Missfelder, who was in the back passenger row, said: ‘It was absolutely terrifying, everyone was screaming.’

Miss Felder, a nursing specialist at the University Hospital in Zurich, immediately recognized her fellow passenger’s ill health as soon as they boarded the plane.

They Swiss news agency Bulk Told: ‘He was sweating, he was breathing very fast.’

The man’s Filipina wife explained that the two of them ran very fast to the plane, which made her feel unwell.

At this point, the nurse intervened and said that the passenger needed medical attention, whereupon the plane’s captain announced over the speaker for a doctor.

He said: ‘A 30-year-old from Poland (the medic) went to the German, checked his pulse and asked in broken English how he was feeling.’

‘They then gave him some herbal tea but he had already spat blood into the bag his wife was holding.’

Despite the worsening situation, airport officials decided to take off.

As the plane rose into the air, the passenger’s condition deteriorated dramatically and he started bleeding from the mouth and nose.

He said: ‘This passenger had several liters of blood.’

The flight crew immediately tried to manage the situation but to no avail and the man was taken to the service area of ​​the aircraft and it was decided to return to Bangkok.

The captain announced over the speaker that the passenger had sadly died.

Despite the hardships passengers faced, Miss Felder’s husband Martin described the situation at Bangkok airport as dire.

He said, ‘Nobody took care of us, we waited for two hours. There was no care team, there was no one to help us.’

He said that the most regrettable thing was that the wife of the deceased passenger had to go through customs alone afterwards. ‘She was there alone and had to go through all the formalities.

‘The unacceptable fact is that Lufthansa took no action in this matter, no one cared about the 30 traumatized passengers who faced this situation.’

In a statement to The Independent, a Lufthansa airline representative confirmed that a ‘medical emergency’ had occurred during the flight. Although immediate and comprehensive first aid measures were administered by the flight crew and a doctor, the passenger died mid-flight.

‘An hour and a half into the flight the crew decided to return to Bangkok, where the plane landed normally and safely. There, the instructions of the medical emergency services and the Thai authorities were followed.

According to the statement: ‘Passengers of the canceled flight have been rebooked on other flights. Our sympathies go out to the relatives of the deceased passenger. We are also sorry for the inconvenience caused to the passengers of this flight.’

Lufthansa Airlines did not respond when asked about the decision to take off from Bangkok despite the victim’s poor health.

The news comes as the German airline resumed flights after hundreds of flights were canceled from the country’s major airports due to a 27-hour strike by ground staff.

Members of the Ver.di union walked out on Wednesday (February 7) at Germany’s five major airports over a pay dispute.