First Picture Of Aer Lingus Passenger Who Bit Fellow Traveller Then Died After Cocaine Pellets Burst In His Stomach

Image source: Facebook

24-year-old John Kennedy dos Santos Gurjao sank his teeth into a passenger, then lay screaming and shaking before being pronounced dead at Cork airport, where the Aer Lingus flight diverted

A man who bit a fellow jet passenger during a violent mid-air fit before he collapsed and died has been pictured for the first time (SEE STORY HERE). John Kennedy dos Santos Gurjao sank his teeth into a passenger who tried to restrain him, then lay screaming and shaking before being pronounced dead at Cork airport, where the Aer Lingus flight diverted.

The 24-year-old Brazilian was on the plane from the Portuguese capital of Lisbon to Dublin on Sunday evening when the incident unfolded just after 5pm.

Packages were reportedly recovered from the body and sent for analysis after the postmortem.

A Portuguese woman in her 40s, thought to have been sat next to him, was arrested after 4lbs of white powder believed to be amphetamine was allegedly found in her luggage.

Daily Mirror report continues:

The pilot told ground control of a passenger “running amok”, adding: “He’s extremely violent.”

Police interviewed passengers before they were transferred to Dublin. Aer Lingus described the incident as a “medical emergency”.

He was restrained by crew after becoming "extremely violent" but then reported to not have a pulse, with a postmortem confirming John had ingested 0.8kg of suspected cocaine.

The drugs were believed to have been wrapped in 80 pellets, but one burst after he had become ill midair.

Cocaine in that quantity has a street value of £40,000.

Heartbroken family members took to Facebook to pay tribute to John after he died on the Airbus A320.

The plane (pictured) was forced to divert to Cork Airport after Gurjao became violent and had to be restrained

They were informed of his death in a phone call from the Brazilian Embassy in Dublin. John was one of nine siblings.

This morning a family member of John, Euziane Gurjao Ferreira, posted an emotional tribute on Facebook.

In a message shared with an image of him smiling, she said: "How much longing and sadness I will feel.

"I have lost a [...] part of me. I don't understand, why you? But I know that God knows.

"Happiness is the only word that describes what you are, was and always will be."

The suspected cocaine is being analysed by authorities after an inquest into his death was opened.

After John had reportedly become violent, the cabin crew informed controllers at Cork Airport that there was a doctor on board treating “a gentleman”, but said the man in question no longer had a pulse.

Shocked passenger John Leonard, of Cork, told the Irish Mirror: "The noise he was making was like something I have never heard before.

"Not screaming in a sense you know if you’d hurt yourself or something, just a very guttural, from deep within him."

Garda vehicles depart the scene of the examination of an Aer Lingus at Cork Airport on which a 24-year old man died.

All 168 passengers and six crew members were moved off the plane and into the airport after it landed.

Airport paramedics and an ambulance responded to the scene after the captain declared the incident a medical emergency mid-flight.