Lufthansa crew member among two dead after suspected electrocution in five-star hotel pool

31 Oct 2026 • 6:42 PM MYT
The Independent
The Independent

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Lufthansa crew member among two dead after suspected electrocution in five-star hotel pool

Two foreigners died and two others were injured after suspected electrocution in the swimming pool of a five-star hotel in Bengaluru in southern India, police said.

One of the men who died was reportedly a crew member of German Lufthansa airlines.

The pool is on the third floor of the Conrad hotel in Halasuru, also known as Ulsoor, and the incident happened on Friday evening.

The dead are Alexander Maximilian Theiss, 57, a German national who worked as a crew member with Lufthansa, and Juraj Horvat, 45, a Slovak national who was a project manager with IBM, police said.

Both were staying at the hotel and had gone for a swim, NDTV reported. Lufthansa has confirmed that one of its crew members died in an accident during a layover in Bengaluru.

Two people were hurt while trying to rescue them, a senior police officer said.

They are Mathew Desantis, 41, a US national staying at the hotel, and Rahul Tiwari, 28, an Indian pool attendant employed by the hotel.

Both were taken to Manipal Hospital, where they are being treated and are out of danger, the officer said.

Police have registered a case and started an investigation, and the exact circumstances that led to the suspected electrocution and the deaths are being examined, the officer said.

Four people were brought to Manipal Hospital at about 5.10pm local time on Friday, the hospital said.

Theiss was already dead when he arrived and Horvat died while doctors tried to revive him.

Theiss's wife has filed a police complaint, NDTV reported.

It says the men suffered an electric shock while trying to get out of the pool and drowned, and alleges that the deaths were caused by negligence by the hotel's management in maintaining the pool.

The hotel, which is part of the Hilton group, has said on its website that the pool will be closed for maintenance from 31 October to 30 November, the news site Bombay Samachar reported.

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