Indian-Origin Woman, Travelling Home After 4 Years, Dies On Qantas Flight Minutes Before Takeoff In Australia

In a tragic incident, an Indian-origin woman died on an international Qantas flight shortly after she boarded the flight in Australia’s Melbourne to fly home to Punjab via New Delhi on June 20. It was the first time in four years that 24-year-old Manpreet Kaur was travelling home to see her family. Reports by Australian media outlets said that she died while she was fastening her seatbelt.

Her friends told Australian media outlets that Manpreet “felt unwell” hours before arriving at the airport but managed to board the flight but she fell to the floor and “died on the spot” as she was fastening her seatbelt.

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Emergency Services Attempted To Provide Medical Assistance

Her flight was still attached to the boarding gate in the Melbourne airport which allowed cabin crews and emergencies to reach her but they could not save her. The reports said that Manpreet was suffering from tuberculosis, an infectious disease that mostly affects the lungs and could have likely died due to a complication that arose from the disease.

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She was studying to become a chef and was working for the Australia Post. “When she got on the plane, she was struggling to put her seatbelt on. Just before her flight started, she fell in front of her seat and died on the spot,” her friend Gurdip Grewal told the Herald Sun. Her friend said Manpreet first moved to Australia in March 2020.