Ex-soldier found dead on NY flight

“How they handled this situation was in poor taste,” said Alicia Charles Smith, one of Gary’s four children.

“No one came forward and told us anything about what happened, save for a few officers that were at the airport.” Newsday was told that Charles who lived in New York for 11 years, left the JFK Airport on Thursday morning on a fourhour flight to Trinidad, hoping to pay his family a surprise visit. However, when the plane touched down at Piarco Airport at about 3.38 pm, flight attendants noticed that he was not getting up from his seat. When they checked on him, he was unresponsive. He was, moments later, pronounced dead by a district medical officer and his body removed to the Forensic Science Centre, St James where an autopsy was conducted.

Relatives told Newsday Charles was an ex-soldier, and a father of four. Charles was considered by his family to be a fit man, however, three years ago, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer.

After a battle, the cancer went into remission, but came back even more aggressively.

An autopsy confirmed that he died from natural causes linked to his ailment.

Newsday understands Charles was buried under Muslim rites.