Passenger who died mid-flight en route to San Francisco is identified
His identity was confirmed to The Independent by the San Mateo County Coroner's Office in a phone call. The coroner's office did not provide a cause of death.
The passenger, who was travelling with a medical note, suffered a medical emergency while the plane was mid-air, Turkish Airlines told The Independent in a statement. The airline did not identify the passenger."
Despite all medical interventions performed by two doctors on board and our crew, including CPR and defibrillation, the passenger's heart stopped, and he passed away," the airline said.
The crew initially considered diverting to Iceland's Keflavik Airport but instead continued towards North America, landing at Chicago O'Hare, according to aviation outlet Aviation A2Z.
There was initial confusion about the location of the 83-year-old's remains. An original report by the SFGATE said Ertugrul Gulsen, the Turkish Airlines station manager at San Francisco International Airport, told the outlet that "the flight diverted to Chicago O'Hare International Airport after a passenger died.'
However, Turkish Airlines told The Independent on Friday that the diversion to Chicago was due to refuelling.
'With the joint decision of the captain and Operations Control Center, and with the consent of the passenger's accompanying relatives on board, it was decided that the flight would proceed to San Francisco without diversion. Accordingly, authorities and police in San Francisco were informed, and all necessary procedural preparations were carried out," the emailed statement read.'
Due to the requirement for re-fueling, a diversion was made to Chicago. Upon landing the airport authority and the police were accordingly informed by our officials. Following the re-fueling and with the necessary approvals from the authorities, the consent of the passenger's relatives, and the decision of OCC and the captain, it was deemed operationally viable for the flight to continue to San Francisco.
'The flight landed approximately five and a half hours later than scheduled in San Francisco.All passengers, crew, and the deceased passenger's relatives were met by law enforcement officials.
Statements of crew and relatives were taken, and the official reports were filed,the Turkish Airlines spokesperson said.After all passengers had disembarked, an autopsy officer arrived and conducted the required reporting process related to the incident.
The airline added: "The deceased passenger and their relatives onboard were disembarked from the aircraft under the supervision of law enforcement and the autopsy officer. The aircraft was subsequently cleared to resume operations as scheduled.'
San Mateo County Coroner's Office confirmed to The Independent that Pasupuleti's remains were offloaded in that county, home to the San Francisco International Airport, and are under the jurisdiction of the local coroner.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
9 hours ago
- The Guardian
WNBA says fan arrested for throwing sex toy on court and vows future bans
The WNBA said Saturday that the individual who threw a sex toy on the court at an Atlanta Dream game earlier in the week was arrested and that any person throwing objects onto the court will be ejected from the arena and face a minimum one-year ban. The incident in Atlanta occurred late in the fourth quarter of the Dream's game against Golden State on Tuesday in College Park, Georgia. On Friday, another sex toy was thrown in Chicago under a basket after a whistle was blown to stop play during the third quarter of Golden State's 73-66 victory over the Sky. An official kicked the object aside before it was picked up and removed. It's unknown if the fan who threw the object at the Sky game was arrested. #Breaking: Another Sex Toy Thrown onto the Court During #WNBA Game #ChicagoSky #Valkyries 'The safety and well-being of everyone in our arenas is a top priority for our league. Objects of any kind thrown onto the court or in the seating area can pose a safety risk for players, game officials, and fans,' the league said in a statement. 'In line with WNBA Arena Security Standards, any fan who intentionally throws an object onto the court will be immediately ejected and face a minimum one-year ban in addition to being subject to arrest and prosecution by local authorities.' 'It's super disrespectful,' Sky center Elizabeth Williams said after Friday's game. 'I don't really get the point of it. It's really immature. Whoever is doing it needs to grow up.' New York Liberty forward Isabelle Harrison commented on social media about the situation Friday. 'ARENA SECURITY?! Hello??!' Harrison said on X. 'Please do better. It's not funny. Never was funny. Throwing ANYTHING on the court is so dangerous.' WNBA arenas have security procedures, with many having either a no-bag policy or some allowing clear bags, often limited in size. Every bag is subject to search upon arena entry.
The Guardian
10 hours ago
- The Guardian
How Ice cancelled summer: hundreds of Latino festivals face impossible decision over fear of raids
For Orlando Gutierrez in Kansas City, the thought of cancelling his community's summer Colombian Independence Day festival first surfaced 'the week after the inauguration' in January, 'when the raids started happening'. The decision was rooted in 'trying to be safe', Gutierrez said. 'We're not talking about folks that are irregular in terms of their immigration status. You only have to look a certain way and speak a certain language and then you're in danger.' For decades prior to 2025, the event had gone on interrupted – 'in rain, in extreme heat' – and hosted thousands of Colombians and non-Colombians alike, Gutierrez said. 'Our mission is to share our culture with people that don't know it,' he added. 'To not have the opportunity – that's where it hurts the most.' In Donald Trump's second term as president, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) has been historically expansionist: it now aims for an unprecedented 3,000 minimum arrests a day. Its agents have thrown undocumented people, residents with protected legal status, and even American citizens into a deportation system that increasingly does not respect due process. Out of fear of being targeted indiscriminately, cultural and musical events from coast to coast – block parties and summer concerts in California; Mexican heritage celebrations in Chicago; soccer fan watch parties in Massachusetts – have been postponed or canceled altogether. Even religious gatherings are no longer perceived as safe from Ice. In San Bernardino, California, Bishop Alberto Rojas has dispensed his congregation from the obligation to attend mass out of fear of deportation raids. Every decision to cancel is heartbreaking. In Philadelphia, Carnaval de Puebla, which was scheduled for April, made the call to cancel in February, said organizer Olga Rentería. 'We believe this is not a time to celebrate,' Rentería explained, 'but a time to remain united, informed, and strong.' In Los Angeles, organizers of Festival Chapín, a celebration of Guatemalan culture, have postponed the event from this August to October. 'It was really hard to take that decision,' Walter Rosales, a restaurateur and one of the event's organizers, told the Guardian. 'We have a lot of attendees; more than 50,000 people every year. People have hotels, they have flights. We hire people to be there. But I think it was the best [choice.] The first thing we want is the security of the people.' Rosales said he hopes that by waiting a few months, Festival Chapín can take place amid a different political climate, one in which Ice sticks to promises made by Trump to target primarily undocumented people with criminal records. But mass raids are likely to get more frequent: the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, legislation forced through Congress by Republicans and signed into law by Trump on the Fourth of July, will slash social programs while funding Ice at levels comparable to the budget of the US army. It means that even huge stars are questioning whether concerts are safe for their fans. When the Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny announced a recent tour that skips the continental US altogether, social media speculation centered on the notion that the artist did not want to put his fans in Ice's crosshairs. That theorizing was in part fueled by Bad Bunny's own dips into the wider political conversation: he's called Ice agents 'sons of bitches' on social media and his 'NUEVAYoL' video – in which the Statue of Liberty is garlanded with the Puerto Rican flag – is a lovely and grand ode to New York's immigrants. Of avoiding the US on his upcoming tour, the artist himself has only said that, after touring regularly in the US in recent years, more dates at this time were 'unnecessary'. (A representative for Bad Bunny did not respond to a request for comment.) Gabriel Gonzales, the bandleader of the Los Angeles Latin music ensembleLa Verdad, said some of their gigs have had to be cancelled this summer. 'A lot of people are very scared to go out,' he said. 'It's kind of like the pandemic all over again.' But as La Verdad continue to perform around Los Angeles and elsewhere, Gonzales is finding new meaning in playing live amid the Trump administration's policies. 'It's not like a rebellion,' he said. 'It's more like a resistance. As musicians, we are there to take people away for a few moments. I see communities pulling together and I feel like everything is going to be OK.' For Joyas Mestizas, a Seattle-based Mexican folk dance youth group, which cancelled their annual festival this year, the plan is to be 'more creative' going forward. 'But we're not going anywhere,' said the group's co-director, Luna Garcia. 'If I have to teach kids out of my basement, I'll do it. The kids are going to dance.' For some organizers of cultural events for Latino communities, pushing through and executing their plans despite fears of raids has become its own kind of crusade. In July, federal agents were spotted on the premises of Chicago's National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts & Culture just days before the institution was scheduled to hold its annual Barrio Arts Festival. The museum said the agents entered the property, 'refused multiple requests to present a warrant, badge, or identification', and 'informed museum staff that they were assessing entry and exit points for upcoming events that may draw undocumented attendees'. (In a statement, homeland security said agents 'staged and held a quick briefing in the Museum's parking lot in advance of an enforcement action related to a narcotics investigation'.) In response to the presence of the federal agents, the museum decided not to cancel the festival – but, rather, to ensure it would go forward without endangering its attendees. Veronica Ocasio, the museum's director of education and programming, said that in the days before Barrio Arts, she and her team 'met non-stop' in order to create 'as tight a security plan as we could'. The museum is located inside Chicago's Humboldt Park; in order to cover the park's 200 acres, Ocasio and her co-organizers assembled a group of volunteer immigration advocates who created a trigger warning and stood guard on rotation for the entirety of the two-day festival. If Ice agents were spotted, the museum was ready to shut down the event, close the gates, and bunker in place – holding attendees inside until the agents left. The plan then called for Ocasio and other museum employees to stand out front with immigration attorneys, holding the fort. Delia Ramirez, an Illinois congresswoman, was also a key part of the museum's plan. In order to head off potential Ice raids, Ramirez as well as other elected officials were on the premises 'around the clock', she said. 'State representatives, city council folks, the mayor. All to protect constituents from homeland security.' 'The president has taken away people's healthcare so he can hire more Ice agents to terrorize communities,' added Ramirez, but that doesn't mean 'there's no oversight or accountability. At a time where the federal government wants to harm you, we will keep each other safe'. For Ramirez, Barrio Arts Festival was 'a beautiful showing of people saying to Ice, 'not here, not now, not ever'.' Beyond her support for local cultural events, Ramirez is attempting to push back on Ice action more broadly: she's a co-sponsor of the No Anonymity in Immigration Enforcement Act which would prohibit Ice from the now-common practice of carrying out their deportation actions while masked. 'People are freaking the hell out,' she said. 'They don't know whether it's an Ice agent who is going to criminalize them with no due process or it's someone who wants to rob them. No other law enforcement agency does this.' Ultimately, not only did the Puerto Rican event in Chicago go on without interruption, but it was 'our largest, most well attended Barrio Fest in our twenty-five year history', Ocasio said. 'We stood against intimidation and we created a blueprint for festivals in the city of Chicago.' The museum has already shared the safety plan it developed on the fly with organizers of upcoming events representing the local Colombian and Mexican communities. Ahead of New York's Colombia Independence Day festival – held in July in Corona, a working class neighborhood in Queens – organizers were similarly concerned about the possibility of Ice raids. They took precautions by bordering off the event, marking it as private, and creating a single entrance point where they would have stopped Ice agents operating without a warrant, organizers told the Guardian. Like Chicago's Barrio Arts Festival, they had lawyers on hand from a local legal services organization. Ultimately, like Barrio Arts, they too set a new attendance record, with around 20,000 festival goers. Catalina Cruz, a New York state assembly member who helped plan the Colombian festival, said that all the precautions she and her fellow organizers took 'doesn't explain why so many people came out – from all over the city and beyond'. She credited attendees with a certain kind of mental fortitude: 'I'm not in their minds, but I don't think they were giving a fuck about the president.' Of course, that fuzzy feeling of having put on a successful mass event for the Latino community in the era of all-pervading fear of Ice isn't a panacea. As Cruz put it: 'What would have really stopped [Ice] if they wanted to get in? As we have seen in the case of California' – where federal agents have forcefully and en masse raided parks and working farms – 'not a goddam thing.' Newly flush with cash thanks to the Big Beautiful Bill, Ice is now actively recruiting waves of new agents – to, in their words, 'defend the homeland' – by offering $50,000 signing bonuses and student loan forgiveness. Tom Homans, the Trump administration's border czar, has promised to 'flood the zone' with Ice agents in New York and other sanctuary cities. But on that Sunday in Queens, the Colombian festival ticked along beautifully with no sight or sound of the federal government's aggressive deportation machine. Vendors pushed street-cart ceviche and plastic pouches full of high-octane primary-color beverages: 'Coctelitos, coctelitos!' Seemingly every other person wore the powerful yellow jersey of the Colombian national soccer team. Twentysomethings salsa'd next to older family members grooving in their wheelchairs. When a performer with serious pipes sang the Star Spangled Banner, everybody perked up. When she followed it up with the national anthem of Colombia, throat-bursting singalongs broke out. After she wrapped up, the DJ smashed the ehh-ehh-EHH horns and, all together, folks chanted: 'Viva Colombia! Viva Colombia!'
Daily Mail
13 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Hero who stepped in to stop crazed man harassing mom and kids at train stop is butchered to death
A courageous cyclist was stabbed to death by a crazed man at a San Francisco train stop after he stepped in to protect a mother and her kids who were being harassed. Colden Kimber, 28, was fatally jabbed in the neck with a six-inch blade on July 26 while waiting at a Muni stop with his girlfriend in the Ingleside neighborhood. The couple had gone on a date before making their way to the stop around 4.15pm, which was surrounded by children and families, when Sean Collins, 29, started yelling at a mom. As they waited, Kimber decided to bravely get in between Collins as he shouted at the woman 'Oh you think you are better than me,' and 'You are scared of me,' court documents obtained by KGO said. While 6ft4in Kimber stood directly in front of Collins as the train approached, he 'stabbed the unsuspecting victim on the right side of his neck,' records showed. Following the 'completely and utterly unprovoked' attack, Kimber stopped moving as blood gushed out of his neck, the court filing read. He was rushed to San Francisco General Hospital where he died after undergoing surgery. Shortly after the deadly incident, Collins was found covered in blood by police blocks away from the scene and taken into custody. Surveillance footage from a nearby restaurant also captured Collins walking in the area dressed in an all-black outfit. Collins has been charged with murder and is due in court for his arraignment on August 14. It is unclear what drove him to stab Kimber, but according to court documents, the Superior Court of California received a report regarding his mental health. The results of the report remain unclear at this time. Cameras at the Muni station captured the attack and two child witnesses, aged eight and 14, saw the horror stabbing occur, according to prosecutors. Now, Kimber's loved ones are trying to make sense of the crime that took the life of someone who was trying to save others. Bradley Woehl, the owner of American Cyclery, where Kimber worked, said he is a 'totally irreplaceable' employee who he will miss dearly. 'I'm going to miss him for his good nature and his kind spirit, and he really lived such an exemplary life. He was a very positive influence on myself and my staff,' Woehl told KGO. He added that Kimber worked at the shop for years, where he would repair and even build new bikes for customers. 'He is totally irreplaceable as a worker, and totally irreplaceable as a friend and person and someone who had a good influence in my life,' his boss added. Kimber discovered his passion for cycling when he took his mother's place in the New York triathlon after she had to drop out while fighting breast cancer, she told the San Francisco Chronicle. 'He had never ridden a bike on a road,' Lara Litchfield-Kimber said. 'The bikes were the things that stuck.' After relocating from New York to California in 2020 with his long-time girlfriend, Kimber joined the Dolce Vita Cycling team as well as a semi-professional ice hockey team in Vacaville. He previously played hockey growing up, his mother explained. Kimber loved biking so much he would be on his bike for 12,000-13,000 miles some years, per the Chronicle. When he wasn't dabbling in sports, Kimber was studying kinesiology at San Francisco State University. He dreamed of working in sports medicine. Litchfield-Kimber set up a GoFundMe page to help support their family during this difficult time. 'Colden unwillingly leaves behind a loving partner of seven years, his little sister who is just getting into road cycling, friends young and old, beloved cycling and hockey communities on both sides of the country, and his family who was immensely proud of the man he had become,' she wrote. In addition to trying to plan services and memorials for her late son, his grieving mother said his family plans to 'simultaneously navigate a criminal homicide trial from across the country and all the unknowns of this unfamiliar process.' As of Sunday afternoon more than $81,500 was raised to help them out.
