Pilot on Egypt’s Nesma Airlines announces captain’s death mid-flight

Footage has been shared of the moment a pilot with Egyptian airline Nesma announced the captain of the aircraft had died. Posted on social media platforms X and Tiktok, the video shows the interior of the plane cabin of Nesma Airlines flight NE130 from Cairo, Egypt to Taif, Saudi Arabia as the first officer declared over the PA that the captain had died. The copilot told passengers the plane would be diverted to the Saudi city of Jeddah as a result. The Aviation Herald reported that the Sky Vision Airbus A320-200 landed safely in Jeddah about 30 minutes later. Egyptian media reported that the captain, Hassan Youssef Adas, suffered a medical emergency in-flight and died shortly afterwards. While such incidents are very rare, it is not unheard of for the pilot of a commercial passenger jet to die in the cockpit. In 2023, a veteran pilot for Chilean airline Latam died after a medical emergency on a flight from Miami, Florida to Santiago, Chile. In that case, the aircraft made an emergency landing in Panama City to allow the pilot to receive treatment, but he later passed away. In 2015, there were two in-flight pilot deaths in one week. On October 5 of that year, an American Airlines pilot died after becoming ill just before his plane landed in the US. The following day, a pilot of a United Airlines flight passed out and died.<br/>