Man Bites Fellow Passenger & Later Dies on Aer Lingus Flight
Jeff Edwards October 19, 2015
Authorities are investigating a biting incident, a passenger death and drug trafficking, all related to a single Aer Lingus flight on Sunday.
Aer Lingus Flight 1485 from Lisbon Portela Airport (LIS) to Dublin Airport (DUB) saw more drama and intrigue than most Hollywood movie scripts. The action-packed Sunday evening flight witnessed equal parts tension and tragedy with a bizarre plot twist that still hasn’t completely been explained.
Events began to unfold shortly after takeoff, when a 24-year-old Brazilian national onboard suffered what at first appeared to be a violent seizure. The ailing man reportedly bit at least one of the other passengers on the flight who rushed to assist him. At this point, the situation turned from concerning to downright frightening.
“The noise he was making was like something I had never heard before,” passenger John Leonard told the Daily Mail. “It’s not something you’d hear every day. It was like deep anguish is the best way I could describe it, very, very troubled. Not screaming in a sense you know if you’d hurt yourself or something, just a very guttural, from deep within him.”
Not certain if the man was suffering from a medical condition or if he posed a danger to the flight, or both, fellow passengers restrained the distressed flyer. Meanwhile, the pilot told air traffic controllers that a passenger was “running amok” and had injured at least one other person onboard. The captain declared a medical emergency and the flight was quickly diverted to nearby Cork Airport (ORK).
When the plane touched down at ORK, emergency workers rushed one passenger to the hospital suffering from a bite wound and the passenger who had been restrained near the back of the plane was declared dead at the scene. Investigators interviewed all 174 passengers and crew members aboard at the scene in an attempt to learn more about the bizarre and tragic incident.
Shortly after passengers were escorted off the plane, an unidentified 44-year-old Portuguese woman, reportedly traveling with the man who died, was arrested on drug trafficking charges after authorities discovered that she was allegedly in possession of nearly five pounds of amphetamine powder.
[Photo: Daily Mail]
