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Passenger Dies on El AL Flight from LA to Tel Aviv


elalPassengers on board a flight 006 that took off on Thursday from Los Angeles to Israel on a Boeing 777 did not expect that the passenger who passed out would die on his way to Israel.

After passing out in the terminal the man was checked by medical personnel and while they recommended that he remain behind, he insisted he was okay and was quite capable of flying. Following a three hour delay the flight took off for Israel. During the flight the man, 60, who identified himself as a doctor, fainted more than once but assured the flight crew he was fine. Somewhere over Europe he was niftar. CPR was performed, albeit without success.

“It happened while everyone was asleep. They brought him to the area of the cabin crew and that is where CPR was performed. It was another 3.5 hours to Israel” explains the female that sat near him on the flight.

More than a few passengers were having a difficult time flying near the body for a number of hours until they reached Tel Aviv. El Al officials are quoted by Yediot Achronot explaining that if a person dies on a flight a special landing is not made. The body is covered and placed in as private an area that can be found for the duration of the flight.

El Al officials declined to respond to the case in point out of respect to the family’s privacy.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)



21 Responses

  1. Were there any kohanim on board and if so, I’m not sure this would be an issue since obviously there is nothing that can be done until the plane lands. Nonetheless, it must be emotionally upsetting to ALL on board.

  2. #1-While that is all true, posters here should please not let an incident like this prevent them from using it to point out that the “Zionist Airline” must have done something wrong. Akuperma?

  3. 1. Yes it would be an issue and YES nothing could be done. A person has a chazoka that they will live if they are alive otherwise a kohen would have MAJOR tzuris.

  4. In fact, a small person (like a “Katan”) could say that Israel purposely arranged it that this person should be niftar on the plane, in order to be m’tamei any Kohanim on board.

    Not stopping for a person who dies in-flight R”L, is a way of causing shmad. How? I have no clue. I will leave that to the experts who know how to twist it that way.

  5. #gadolhadorah. If there was a kohen on board, it would definitely be a problem. Whether or not something can be done makes no difference, only that they are in the same ohel

  6. All Kohanim are (in reality) tamei met anyway. But if they were doing CPR over the EU why didn;t they land to get hum medical attention?

  7. Standard procedure is to place the niftar in a body bag and secure it up in the hidden compartment (where the crew take breaks) upstairs. It’s like a crawl space, just a bit bigger. They also don’t make announcements or draw any extra attention. If it was night (dark) and no one gossiped about what they had seen, a handful or two at most would have known. Everyone else is ignorant until landing…

  8. How on earth did El Al allow someone who passed out before the flight and was advised to be medically unfit to fly, board the plane?

  9. there is no need to tell any passengers about the death, with the exception of his traveling relatives. why shake people up about something that can not be changed?

  10. Perhaps a suggestion for him to have waited for the next flight to determine his health conditions would have been an option.

    BDE to the family.

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