British Airways flight continues for 13 hours with the body of a dead passenger stored in rear galley
March 23, 2026
British Airways passengers travelling on a scheduled flight from Hong Kong to London Heathrow faced a traumatic experience after one of their fellow passengers, a woman in her 60s, passed away during the flight.
Rather than return to Hong Kong, the crew elected to continue to London, where the aircraft landed some 13 hours later.
British Airways passenger dies while flying from Hong Kong to London
A family party flying from Hong Kong International Airport (HKG) to London Heathrow Airport suffered the distressing occurrence of one of their family members, a female in her 60s, passing away while the aircraft was en route to London.
With the crew electing to continue to the flight’s destination, the aircraft was met upon arrival, some 13 hours later, by police and medical staff.
The flight involved was British Airways flight BA32 from Hong Kong to London Heathrow on 15 March. According to data obtained from Flightradar24, the flight was operated by one of the carrier’s 18-strong fleet of Airbus A350-1000s registered as G-XWBC and was carrying 331 passengers at the time of the incident.
The flight departed from Hong Kong at 23:07, some 22 minutes behind its scheduled departure time of 22:45 for its 13.5-hour flight to London.
After about an hour into the flight and with the aircraft cruising at 38,000ft above Guiyang, China, reports suggest that a female passenger in her 60s had passed away. She had family members travelling with her who were said to be “distraught” following her passing.
Following discussion among the crew, it was initially discussed that the deceased woman’s body would be stored out of view in one of the aircraft’s nine toilets.
However, for reasons that may have been linked to the flight being 100% full, this decision was later overturned by the crew, who decided to store the body, once it had been wrapped in special materials, on the floor of the main cabin’s rear galley.
The death of a passenger, although uncommon, is not unprecedented, and cabin crew receive training for such occurrences. Such situations are not classed as an emergency, however, and would not always stipulate the aircraft making an emergency landing or diversion back to its point of origin.
Given this, the crew elected to continue to fly to Heathrow, given that there was nothing that could be done for the passenger by this point.
Normally, crew members often just cover the body in a blanket and leave it in its seat until the aircraft’s arrival. However, as the flight was completely full (British Airways’ A350s seat 331), it was decided to move the body to an area out of sight of the passengers.
However, in this instance, the crew overlooked that the rear galley floor on the Airbus A350 is heated, and towards the end of the 13-hour flight, several travellers complained that they could detect an odour from the deceased passenger’s body.
The flight continued for 13 hours until arriving at London Heathrow
The aircraft continued on its journey, overflying northern China, Kazakhstan, the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Turkey, and Eastern Europe, before crossing Austria, Germany, and Belgium, before landing at London Heathrow at 04:46, some 49 minutes ahead of schedule.
On arrival at Heathrow’s Terminal 5, the remaining passengers on board were requested to remain in their allocated seats for 45 minutes while an investigation was carried out by the airport police.
Eventually, the remaining passengers were allowed to disembark, while according to reports, some of the flight crew have reportedly been signed off work due to ‘trauma’ caused by the event.
A British Airways spokesperson told AGN that,
“A customer sadly passed away on board and our thoughts are with their family and friends at this difficult time. We are supporting our crew, and all procedures were correctly followed.”
British Airways operates its fleet of Airbus A350-1000s to Hong Kong
British Airways operates daily between London and Hong Kong and currently uses Airbus A350-1000s on the route.
As reported by Planespotters.net, these are configured to accommodate 56 passengers in business class, 56 in premium economy, and 219 in economy. The aircraft involved, G-XWBC, was first delivered to the airline in November 2019 and is 6.4 years old.
The incident aircraft departed from Heathrow later that same day (16 March), operating a scheduled passenger service (BA81) from London to Accra in Ghana and has flown daily since.
Although individual airlines have their own standard procedures for handling the death of a passenger in-flight, the bodies of the deceased are often removed where capacity on the flight allows.
They are often relocated to a position out of view of the rest of the passengers, where space allows. In this case, the full flight made this very difficult for the crew.
In previous years, aircraft such as the Singapore Airlines Airbus A340-500s that once operated Singapore to New York-JFK (the longest scheduled passenger route at the time) were equipped with special compartments at the back of the aircraft in which a body could be stored should a passenger pass away in flight to keep it out of sight of other passengers.
Featured image: MKPhoto / stock.adobe.com
