An Air New Zealand flight travelling from Hong Kong to Auckland was diverted to Cairns, Australia this morning after a man died onboard.
Flight ANZ80 was originally scheduled to land in Auckland at 9:30am this morning until a passenger suffered a medical emergency forcing the plane to be diverted.
The passenger died on the descent into Cairns according to Stuff journalist Gerard Hutching who was also on the flight.
Mr Hutching says an airport officer informed him that the man was diabetic and had forgotten to bring his insulin.
"They spent the good part of about three or four hours trying to keep him going until they got to Cairns,"Hutching said.
"He was wearing an oxygen mask and at one stage they were using a defibrillator on him.
"He was hunched over [and] he didn't look very conscious. He didn't look in a good way."
Hutching said a doctor was onboard attending to the ill passenger.
Air New Zealand told 1 NEWS the aircraft continued on to Auckland, and arrived around two hours behind schedule.
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