Scottish man has heart attack in Turkey holiday flight mid-air drama
A Scottish man is recovering after suffering a heart attack at 35,000ft - on a plane packed with holidaymakers returning from Turkey.
Alex Coyle, 68, from Dunfermline, Fife, suffered a heart attack in the skies over the Czech Republic on the Turkey to Scotland flight - while his horrified wife Helen could only watch helplessly.
A number of passengers helped cabin crew try to revive him using a defibrillator and CPR to get his heart beating again.
The pilot was alerted and the plane made an emergency landing at Prague Airport.
Mr and Mrs Coyle had been on holiday with her sister Zena and her husband Bob Wilson.
Mr Wilson, from Dundee, told The Courier: "The medical care Alex received was second to none, despite the language difficulty, and the nursing staff were also excellent.
"It turned out that an arrhythmia caused his heart to stop and doctors confirmed that, due to the prompt action of passengers and crew, he is expected to make a full recovery."
Back in June, a plane made an emergency landing at Glasgow Airport after a passenger suffered a heart attack on an Icelandair flight en route from Iceland to France, reports news.stv.tv.
And, in September, the pilot of a United Airlines flight suffered a mid-air heart attack and later died.
Henry Skillern, 63, from Texas was piloting a flight from Houston to Seattle when he suffered the heart attack.
An off-duty pilot was on board and helped take control of the plane and make an emergency landing in Idaho.
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