A man has died on a flight from Portugal to Ireland after becoming violent and biting a passenger who tried to help restrain him. The 24-year-old was on an Aer Lingus flight from Lisbon to Dublin, which was forced to divert to Cork Airport. Medics on board the flight were among those understood to have joined efforts to calm the man, who bit one of those battling to restrain him.
He is believed to have fallen unconscious while the plane was in the air and was pronounced dead at Cork Airport. Passenger John Leonard said two nurses and a doctor had tried to resuscitate the man after the captain asked if there were any medics on board.
He told Cork's 96fm: "After that it got worse I would say, his seizure seemed to get worse. He was actually on the ground shaking violently."The noise he was making was like something I have never heard before. It's not something you'd hear everyday. 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."
A post-mortem examination is due to be carried out and may help establish whether the man suffered a seizure, had an underlying medical condition or whether there were other factors involved in his death.
A Portuguese woman in her forties who had been on the plane was arrested after the discovery of amphetamines and was questioned on suspicion of drugs offences at Togher Garda station in Cork city. It is not known if she was travelling with the dead man.
There were 168 passengers and six crew members on board flight EI485, which landed safely at 5.40pm on Sunday.
Aer Lingus described the incident as a "medical emergency".
It is understood that all passengers on the flight were interviewed by police following the landing.
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