A postmortem is to be carried out today on the body of a two-year-old girl who died on board a transatlantic jet after becoming ill on board.
The child was one of a group of 24 Eritrean nationals aboard Lufthansa flight en route from Frankfurt International Airport in Germany to New York's JFK airport.
The captain declared a medical emergency and sought permission to divert to Shannon yesterday afternoon.
Despite attempts by a doctor on board the Boeing 747 jet to treat her, the girl died before the plane landed. She was pronounced dead at Shannon airport.
The girl was travelling with her parents as part of a group of eight on their way to settle permanently in the US as part of an international migration programme.
The child's body will be moved from the Midwestern Regional Hospital in Limerick to University College Hospital Cork today, where Deputy State Pathologists Dr Margaret Bolster and Dr Michael Curtis will conduct a postmortem examination.