Dublin Airport
Forgotten corpse on the plane: dead man has to be transported twice to his home country
An Aegean Airlines machine was supposed to transport a dead person to Ireland. But the corpse in the machine forgot that (symbol image).
© Andreas Haas / Imago Images
A dead man who was supposed to be transported to his home country of Ireland was forgotten after landing on the plane. The machine then took off again with the body on board and flew back to Greece.
A man from Ireland who died abroad was to be repatriated to his homeland by plane. Aegean Airlines, a Greek airline, was supposed to fly the body from the Mediterranean country to Dublin. However, the staff failed to unload the coffin at the destination airport. The dead man was forgotten – and flown directly back to Greece.
Corpse remains on plane due to “unloading error”.
The Irish newspaper “Sunday Independent” first reported on the incident, which took place at the end of May. Accordingly, the family of the deceased had already been waiting with a hearse at Dublin Airport. When they were informed about the error, the relatives were “devastated”. They had to cancel and rearrange the funeral planned for the next day.
The cause of the mishap was a “discharge error”. Swissport, the company responsible for ground services at Dublin Airport, has apologized to the family of the deceased: “We deeply regret the family’s experience at this difficult time and have done everything to ensure the matter is resolved as quickly as possible solved as possible”, quotes the Newspaper a spokeswoman for the company. An internal investigation has also been launched.
Aegean Airlines and Dublin Airport, both asked for comment, declined to comment on the incident. According to the “Sunday Independent”, Swissport organized the repatriation with another airline, which brought the remains back to Ireland the following day.
Sources: “Sunday Independent“, “t-online“