Doctors in the city of Kazan in Russia on Friday pronounced the death of Zohar Zisner, a year-old Israeli baby who died of cardiac arrest in her sleep during an Aeroflot flight from the Phuket resort island in Thailand to Moscow, where she and her family were scheduled to make an interim stop on the way to Israel.
At 4:00 PM local time, the pilot, having learned that the baby was in respiratory distress, made an emergency landing in Kazan, in southwest Russia, where medical staff had been rushed to the airport to try to revive her, but to no avail. Her condition deteriorated and she stopped breathing.
The tragedy took place on Aeroflot’s Airbus A330 with 274 passengers including 42 children and 12 crew members.
Aeroflot issued a press release saying: “During the flight on the Phuket-Moscow route, a baby girl born in 2018 was feeling bad. The captain decided to make an emergency landing in Kazan to evacuate her for urgent medical attention. Despite the efforts of the medical team which arrived on the plane, the baby unfortunately died.”
Israel’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying: “The Israeli Embassy in Moscow is in contact with the family and the Jewish community nearby, and is helping to make arrangements for the toddler’s body to be transported home as quickly as possible.”