Woman dies after long-haul flight

The incident happened on a flight from San Francisco

A woman from north Wales has collapsed and died at the end of a nine-hour flight from San Francisco to Heathrow.

Susan Mavir-Ross, from Llay, Wrexham, suffered a pulmonary thrombosis embolism and was treated by staff on board the airplane.

Similar incidents on long-haul flights have been controversially linked with so-called 'economy-class syndrome'.

Mrs Mavir-Ross was in her early forties and described by a neighbour as fit and active.

She was returning from a New Year break in the USA with her husband.

Cabin staff on the Virgin plane attempted to treat her on board and the aircraft was given priority landing status.

But Mrs Mavir-Ross was pronounced dead shortly after being taken to Ashford Hospital in Surrey.

Virgin Airlines say Mrs Mavir-Ross was travelling business class and was treated on board the airplane by a doctor.

'Natural causes'

A spokesman for Virgin Atlantic offered their condolences to Mrs Mavir-Ross's family, but said there was nothing to link her death with the flight.

The coroner's office in Surrey said there would be no inquest as embolism was considered as a natural cause of death.

The same office dealt with the death of Emma Christoffersen, the 28-year-old from south Wales who died last October following a flight from Australia to London.

A post-mortem showed she had suffered from a deep vein thrombosis.

At the time, her family called for legislation to improve travel conditions for long haul passengers.

The father of Mrs Mavir-Ross expressed his shock at his daughter's sudden death. Hartley Mavir said her death was totally unexpected as his daughter was always healthy and active

Mrs Mavir-Ross had worked for the past 12 years as a senior buyer at Iceland Frozen Foods on Deeside.

A spokeswoman there said she would be sadly missed.

Medical research has not proved conclusively that long haul flights are linked to passengers developing fatal blood clots.

Dr Patrick Kesteven, consultant haematologist, said that underlying medical conditions could exist among passengers.

He said that DVT cases were rare and that complicated research into the possible links between thrombosis and long-haul flights.

"There is good evidence that people who get a thrombosis on a plane had risk factors for thrombosis before they got on the plane,"

Dr Kesteven said a research team in London had started work to find biochemical markers to find thrombosis before overt symptoms became evident.