Flight To China Lands In Kol As Girl Falls Ill On Board, Dies | India News – Times of India

KOLKATA: An Iraqi teenager, who was travelling to China for renal treatment, died on board the flight after she fell ill mid-air.
The Iraqi Airways flight was diverted to Kolkata, where it made an emergency landing.
Doctors, who checked the passenger on arrival, were unable to detect any pulse or heartbeat. The 16-year-old was later declared dead at a private city hospital.
The deceased, Dekan Ahmed, was being accompanied by her parents and headed to Guangzhou when the mishap occurred.
Airport officials said the flight was around 30 minutes from Kolkata airport when the pilot radioed Airport Traffic Control (ATC) and sought emergency medical landing permission.
“The flight landed safely at 10.12pm and the airport health officer immediately attended her,” said an airport official.
The authorities at the city hospital where she was taken later informed cops, who helped the grieving family check into a hotel for overnight stay. The teenager’s body was shifted to RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, where postmortem was conducted on Thursday.
Cops said the body would be flown back to Baghdad in a coffin via Delhi on Friday.
“There was a major language hurdle as the family was not conversant in English and had difficulty interacting with us and the hospital officials. We had got in touch with the Iraqi diplomatic mission in Delhi who helped us with an interpreter in Kolkata. That’s how we learnt that the teenager was suffering from kidney-related ailments and was heading to China for treatment,” said an officer of Baguiati police station.
The Iraqi Airways flight IA-473 flew to Guangzhou from Kolkata at 1.49am with the remaining 97 passengers and 15 crew members.