Husband arrested after trying to wheel dead wife on to plane
(Picture: Shutterstock / Iurii Dzivinskyi)
A pensioner trying to push his dead wife onto a plane has sparked a security alert.
The man, in his 80s, was caught by security as he wheeled her ‘unresponsive’ body ‘as if she were just another passenger’ through Tenerife South airport in Spain.
After getting through the first security checks, he was only stopped when he got to the metal detector and staff noticed the woman was unconscious.
An airport employee told Spanish newspaper Diario de Avisos: ‘[A] security guard approached the woman, and the man gave her his wheelchair.
‘When she took the woman’s hand, she noticed she had an abnormally low temperature and wasn’t breathing.
‘The worker immediately notified her supervisor. Within minutes, the emergency protocol was activated, and numerous security agents, Civil Guard officers, and forensic personnel arrived at the scene’.
The unknown husband reportedly told police that his wife had died just a few hours before.
Employees claim that the elderly man tried to blame his wife’s death on the airport facilities.
The paper says the investigation remains open as officers determine whether there could be any criminal liability in her death.
The attempt came after a passenger sitting next to an elderly British grandmother who passed away on an easyJet flight revealed his version of events.
Passengers had reported that an 89-year-old woman was ‘already’ dead before getting on the flight to London Gatwick.
In the waiting area, she was seen ‘hunched over’ with others fearing the worst for her before embarking on the journey.
Tony Coatesworth, 71, a self-employed truck driver, was returning from a work trip in Malaga and was sat on 25D, with only the aisle separating him and the elderly woman on 25C.
He told Metro: ‘All I saw was an elderly lady looking very poorly, she was accompanied by two people, a young lady and a man of about mid-fifties.
‘As we were heading to the runway, the young lady quietly told the man there may be a problem.
‘He told the stewardess and she tried to wake the lady but she seemed unresponsive.
‘Earlier, I had seen her breathing.
He added: ‘They informed the captain and the decision was made to return to the parking place.’
‘The misinformation that she was brought onto the plane dead is completely untrue as I saw her breathing.
‘I agree she wasn’t looking great but she was breathing nevertheless.’
He said friends of the grandmother’s family had confirmed she was only flying so she could move to a care home closer to her family in England.
One of the other passengers Petra Boddington told The Sun: ‘People turned in their seats and went, ‘oh my god, she looks dead’.
EasyJet has said the claims she was dead before boarding are unfounded and explained that the woman had a fit-to-fly certificate.