An Australian couple’s dream trip to Venice turned into a nightmare when flight attendants asked them to stay seated next to a dead body for the final four hours of a 14-hour flight from Melbourne, Australia, to Doha, Qatar.

What happened?

When a passenger collapsed during a flight, flight attendants tried to save her but were unsuccessful, Mitchell Ring, another passenger on the flight, said in an interview with an Australian news program, “A Current Affair,” on Channel 9. “They did everything they could, but unfortunately the lady couldn’t be saved, which was pretty heartbreaking to watch,” he said.

The crew tried to move the body to business class using a wheelchair, but it was too large to be moved through the aisle, Mr. Ring said in the interview. The flight attendants then saw that there were two open seats in the row of four seats where he and his wife were seated. They asked Mr. Ring to move over one seat, and placed the body in the seat where he had been sitting.

Through tears, his wife, Jennifer Colin, described the experience as shocking. “I’m not a great flyer at the best of times,” she said during the interview, adding that she moved to a different row of seats.

Upon landing, Mr. Ring said, he was told to stay seated as paramedics removed blankets from the body. The couple said in the interview that the airline had not offered them support.

Qatar Airways said in a statement on Wednesday that airline officials had spoken with the passengers seated next to the body to address their concerns.