Woman who died on Delta flight had cancer

By Mike Morris and Ty Tagami

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The woman who died on a flight from Africa to Atlanta on Monday succumbed to cancer, police said.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation identified the passenger as Aolatou Assani, 57, agency spokesman John Bankhead said.

The woman was found dead aboard Delta Flight 53, a Boeing 777 arriving from Lagos, Nigeria, Kathleen Bergen, a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration, told the AJC. She said the airplane landed without incident around 5 a.m. Monday after the pilot reported that a passenger had died in flight.

The nonstop flight had left Lagos about 12 hours earlier.

The cause of death was diffuse, metastatic ovarian cancer, Bankhead said. He said Assani was flying with her son, who is from Oklahoma City.

A Delta spokeswoman said it was against airline policy to divulge any details about the woman's itinerary.