An 80-year-old man was stopped from boarding a flight at a Tenerife airport after trying to take his dead wife through security.
Staff at Tenerife South Airport noticed the elderly man’s wife was unresponsive as he pushed her in a wheelchair to board a plane.
After the couple passed through security, staff checked on her and realised there were no signs of life.
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 husband, who has not yet been identified, is said to have told investigators that his wife had died a few hours prior.
However, employees claim that the elderly man tried to attribute his wife’s death to the airport, a matter that investigators are looking into.
An 80-year-old man was stopped from boarding a flight at a Tenerife airport after trying to take his dead wife through security (File image of Tenerife South Airport)
The man, who was arrested following the incident, cooperated with officers.
The investigation into the woman’s passing remains open, and aims to understand how she died and whether there is any criminal liability.
Last month, horrified holidaymakers claimed that an elderly British passenger was wheeled onto an easyJet flight from Málaga, Spain, to Gatwick when she was already dead.
The 89-year-old was helped on board the aircraft by five of her relatives who, witnesses say, told airline staff she was unwell and had fallen asleep.
But just before take off, cabin crew were alerted that the woman had passed away. The plane was turned around before it left the runway – and the flight was delayed by 12 hours.
Fellow passengers told how the body had been pushed by a wheelchair to the group’s seats at the rear of the aircraft and lifted into her seat, assisted by five members of her family.
They claimed the group had only been permitted to get onto the plane because they told a boarding clerk, who had questioned the woman’s apparent ill health, that she was ‘just tired’.
One passenger even claimed to have heard one of the group tell the clerk: ‘It’s OK, we’re doctors’.