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Vanessa Prichakul and her boyfriend Robert Rippingale left Singapore on board a Jetstar flight bound for Aukland "holding hands and kissing." About an hour and a half into the 11 hour flight, 31 year old Mr Rippendale started his in-flight meal. A few minutes later, he was dead.
Jetstar says that there was a doctor on the flight as as Mr Rippendale choked, medical attention was given. Reports in other media quote passengers as saying that attempts to revive him including CPR lasted some ten minutes.
In line with airline industry practice, where a passenger dies in flight, the body is removed to a curtained off area - for many aircraft, this is either a small area behind the last row of seats or even a galley which is decommissioned for the remainder of the flight. Unless there are special circumstances such as fear of immediate contagion, flights are not diverted for a death although they are often sent to a nearby airport in the case of a survivable medical emergency. Also in line with industry practice designed to reduce stress for other passengers, the in-flight service continued after removal of the body. Standing instructions for all airlines are to continue as normally as possible in order that other passengers are as little un-nerved as they can be.
"One minute we were sitting next to each other kissing, holding hands and the next minute he was choking," Miss Preechakul told the New Zealand Herald.
She sat with his body for the remainder of the flight. The couple, who had been together some three years in Singapore, were flying to New Zealand to introduce Miss Preechakul to Mr Rippendale's family at a party to celebrate the birthdays of both his parents.
Jetstar has offered passengers on the flight a voucher for AUD100 to thank them for their patience. One passenger is reported as having told a New Zealand newspaper that the aircraft should have turned back after Mr Riddensdale died.
However, the family are unlikely to agree with that suggestion: had it done so, they would have been left with the legal, administrative and emotional problems of recovering his body from Singapore. Instead, they were able to hold a family funeral in Aukland just days after his death.
The family has said that Mr Rippingale had a long history of heart problems and that tallies with the comments made by Miss Preechakul who said that his lips turned blue and his eyes rolled then he started to choke.
Jetstar is the budget division of Qantas and has been the main origin of profits for the group in recent troubled times. Many medium and long-haul routes have been handed off to Jetstar which has recently introduced a business class service on its long-haul sectors, some say to respond to the challenge of AirAsia X
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