On Saturday, an Emirates flight en route to Indonesia made an emergency landing in India after a passenger on board suffered a fatal heart attack, Khaleej Times reported.
Now identified as H.S. Widolo, the 59-year-old Indonesian man was rushed to a local hospital after landing in India's Cochin International Airport, but died before reaching the hospital.
In a statement to the English-language daily, an official spokesperson for the Little Flower Hospital, the center where the man's body was taken, confirmed the tragic incident.
"We can confirm there was a medical diversion. We have informed the local police who are conducting an inquest," they said.
Nedumbassery police station, the local department that is now handling the case in India, also issued a statement on the matter.
In it, they explained that the repatriation process for the deceased man's body is underway.
"Officials are conducting the inquest and after the post-mortem, the body would be kept in the mortuary. It would be handed over to those responsible for taking the body back to his home country," a police officer at the station said.
Not the first time a similar incident is reported
In 2017, an Emirates flight flying from Dubai to Munich, Germany, was diverted after a medical emergency took place on board.
The aircraft made an emergency landing in Kuwait International Airport a while after it took off and the passenger was rushed to a hospital.
The man was later pronounced dead but details of his medical problem were not made public.