A Taiwanese airline has apologized for requesting documents from a dead employee, in the latest development in a case that has sparked widespread outrage.
A 34-year-old Eva Air flight attendant surnamed Surya died earlier this month after feeling unwell during a flight.
Many people online speculated that she was overworked.
Taiwanese authorities and EVA Air are investigating her death, focusing on whether she was denied medical care or prevented from taking sick leave.
On September 24, Ms Sun felt ill at Milan Teiwa Air’s base in Taoyuan City, Taiwan.
She was hospitalized upon arrival and eventually died on October 8.
Anonymous social media users claiming to be her colleagues have alleged that Ms Sun was forced to continue working despite her ill health.
The China Medical University Hospital in Taichung, where she died, has not officially disclosed her cause of death.
In a statement to the BBC, Eva Air said she had maintained contact with her family while she was in hospital and was “deeply saddened” by Surya’s death.
“The health and safety of our staff and passengers is our highest priority,” the airline said, adding that it was “thoroughly reviewing” the matter.
Taiwan’s Central News Agency (CNA) reported that flight records for the past six months showed that Ms Sun had flown an average of 75 hours per month, which is within regulatory limits. It joined the airline in 2016.
According to Ms. Sun’s family, a few days after her death, her phone received a text message from an Eva Air representative asking for documents proving that Ms. Sun had applied for leave at the end of September, the period she had been in the hospital.
The representative asked her to send a photo of the leave documents. The family replied to the text with a copy of Ms Sun’s death certificate.
Senior company officials said at a press conference on Friday that the text was “an error by an internal employee” and that they had personally apologized to Ms Sun’s family for the error.
At a press conference on Friday, EVA Air President Sun Chia-ming said, “Ms. Sun’s passing is a permanent sadness in our hearts.”
“We will conduct the investigation into her death in the most responsible manner,” he said.
Since 2013, Eva Air has been fined seven times, mostly for offenses related to overworked employees, CNA said.
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