British tourist dies on plane from Spain

A British holidaymaker has died on a plane as it was set to leave back to the UK from a Spanish airport.

The 61-year-old is believed to have taken ill as the plane was about to take off, it has since been confirmed that the passenger was a British citizen.

After the medical emergency was discovered, the pilots halted the plane’s departure and radioed in for assistance.

The passenger reportedly lost consciousness and was pronounced dead later after the first responders could not revive them.

The incident took place on a Jet2 plane that was departing from Reus Airport near to Tarragona on Spain’s Costa Dorada.

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The plane was leaving the airport – which is around 65 miles from Barcelona – for East Midlands airport.

In a statement, Jet2 offered sympathy and condolences to the family of the passenger, as well as confirming what had happened.

A spokesperson said: "Flight LS684 from Reus to East Midlands Airport returned to stand on Friday 6th October, due to a customer requiring medical attention.

“Regrettably, we can confirm that the customer sadly passed away.

“Our thoughts are with the customer’s family and friends at this very difficult time.”

The plane was delayed by around seven hours after the incident, which took place around the departure time of 11:10am on Friday.

The plane eventually reached its destination in the Midlands at around 6:00pm local time.

A post-mortem examination is believed to have taken place, but – as is the normal procedure in Spain – the results have not been made public.

The results will be sent directly to an investigating judge who will lead a routine inquiry into the circumstances of the passenger’s death.

MailOnline reports a police source as having said: “[The passenger] died on board the plane while it was still parked but preparing to taxi to the runway for take-off.”

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Another is reported to have said: “In cases like these a judge has to authorise the removal of the body and it will have stayed where it was until the judge or judicial officials reached the plane to sign that authorisation after an inspection of the scene.

“I can't comment on this particular case but normal procedure would be for the other passengers to disembark again until the body had been removed and the plane was ready for take-off.

“I imagine that's what happened here and that would have been behind the delay.

“It's not been treated by police at this stage as a suspicious death and this [passenger] appeared to have had existing health problems.

“But it will be up to the judge to determine the cause of death and the post-mortem results will obviously be able to shed proper light on what occurred.

“A court in Reus has been placed in charge of that probe.”