A United Airlines passenger died on board of a flight from Houston's Bush Intercontinental Airport to Boston's Logan International Airport Tuesday night, WBZ-TV reported.
United Flight 1888 was diverted to the Washington Dulles International Airport in northern Virginia just before midnight because of what crew described as a medical emergency on the airplane, the television station said.
KHOU-TV reported that the crew noticed that something was wrong with the passenger midflight and alerted the pilot. That led to the pilot making the decision to divert the flight, according to the Houston television station.
Medics rushed to the plane on the runway but the passenger, who was not identified in media reports, had already died, WBZ-TV said.
"We are saddened to learn that our customer passed away," United spokesperson Jonathan Guerin said in a statement Wednesday, according to WBZ-TV. "We extend our sincerest condolences to their family. Our crew used all the available equipment including an AED defibrillator."
KHOU-TV wrote that the remaining passengers on that flight were put on a different aircraft and taken to their final destination. The television station said a cause of the passenger's death has not been announced.
WBZ-TV wrote that the passengers reached Logan at about 3:09 a.m.
The United passenger was the second to die on a fight Tuesday. A passenger on an American Airlines flights from London to Philadelphia died after suffering a medical emergency, WCAU-TV reported.
A Philadelphia International Airport representative told WCAU-TV that medics responded to American Airlines flight 737 that made its scheduled landing around 5:45 p.m. Tuesday. The unidentified person on the airliner was pronounced dead.
As in the first incident, airport officials did not reveal how the person died but said that passenger suffered a medical emergency that was unrelated to the flight, WCAU-TV said.
"We have procedures in place to treat a passenger in medical distress," Ross Feinstein, a representative for American Airlines told Travel and Leisure magazine in March about how it handles medical procedures. "Only a medical professional can pronounce someone deceased."
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