New details emerge in Texas passenger’s COVID-19 death while on plane, officials say

A Texas woman who was first reported to have died in July of COVID-19 inside a plane on a tarmac in Arizona actually died after her flight from Las Vegas was diverted to Albuquerque, officials said Wednesday.

Earlier this week, Dallas County officials said a woman in her 30s from Garland, a Dallas suburb, had died from COVID-19 while sitting in a plane scheduled to fly from Arizona to Dallas, McClatchy News reported.

Officials are now saying some of these details are incorrect.

The woman was actually a Dallas resident in her 30s who died in New Mexico, after a Spirit Airlines flight from Las Vegas to Dallas-Fort Worth Airport was diverted to Albuquerque, The Dallas Morning News reported.

The crew reported that the woman was unresponsive on the flight The Arizona Republic reported. It is not clear how long the woman was unresponsive or if she knew she was sick before boarding the flight.

The woman was dead when the plane landed, the Morning News reported.

Health officials have declined to identify the woman, citing privacy concerns.

“Based on that report, and the fact that there was no mention of COVID at the time of the diversion, we treated this as we would any other medical incident,” Stephanie Kitts, a spokesperson for Albuquerque International Sunport, told The Arizona Republic.

A flight from Las Vegas to Albuquerque is about 90 minutes.

Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins announced the woman’s death in a Sunday news release. Her case was confirmed as a COVID-19 death.

“We don’t know a whole lot,” Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins told WFAA earlier this week. “We may not know if she was aware she was sick.”