A Brazilian passenger who died after ‘running amok’ and biting another passenger on a flight from Lisbon to Dublin on Sunday was alleged to have been carrying 800 grams of cocaine in his stomach, with a street value of $63,000.
The man, named as John Kennedy Santos Gurjao by the Irish Times, is believed to have swallowed 80 pellets containing a substance suspected as cocaine. It is understood that one pellet burst in his stomach, causing him to suffer a violent seizure.
The 24 year-old became severely agitated half way through the two hour journey from Lisbon to the Irish capital, which was carrying 168 passengers and six crew members.
All of a sudden, he “ran amok” across the cabin and bit a fellow passenger. He was eventually restrained by the cabin crew. Gurjao became unconscious and a doctor and two nurses who were amongst the passengers rushed to help him.
“He was actually on the ground shaking violently,” said John Leonard, who was on the flight. “The noise he was making was like something I have never heard before.”
“It’s not something you’d hear every day. It was like deep anguish is the best way I could describe it, very, very troubled,” he added, speaking to a Cork-based radio station.
The plane was diverted to make an emergency landing at Cork Airport. Gurjao’s body was then transported to Cork University Hospital, where his body underwent a post-mortem.
A Portuguese woman in her 40s was arrested after being suspected of drugs offences after a quantity of amphetamines was discovered on the plane.