DUBAI: An Emirati daily has denied reports by Saudi papers that a Saudi woman on board an Emirates flight from Frankfurt to Dubai was hit by an Emirati man.
According to the Arabic paper Al- Emarat Al-Youm, the Saudi woman attacked the man’s daughter and the situation worsened when the air hostess tried to calm her.
A source from Emirates Airlines also confirmed to Arab News that the Saudi woman initiated the attack.
In an interview with the Emirati family, Al-Emarat Al-Youm, reported that the 26-year-old daughter of the family moved her seat to a sleeping position when the Saudi woman kicked her. The paper quoted the mother as saying that her daughter called an air hostess to solve the problem but she failed to calm the situation.
The mother, Umm Abdul Aziz, added that both her daughter and the woman then began hurling insults at each other and the situation deteriorated into a fight. The air hostess fled and the Emirati father then tried to stop the fight, said Umm Abdul Aziz. However, another fight started between the Saudi woman and her husband which led to the woman's losing consciousness.
A doctor on the flight failed to resuscitate the woman and the flight was forced to divert to Istanbul. A spokesperson from Emirates Airlines refused to give any information, saying: “We are still investigating this incident and until we have finished our internal investigation we are not able to give a formal response to any request for information although we can confirm that flight EK052 from Munich to Dubai on Aug. 18 was diverted to Ankara in Turkey in order to allow two passengers traveling together to disembark so that one of them could receive medical attention.”
In a related development, Umm Abdul Aziz told Emarat Al-Youm that her daughter had filed a police case against the Saudi couple with the airport police in Dubai. She also underwent a medical checkup at the trauma center in Rashid Hospital.
