Auckland Council's head of emergency management planning, Richard Woods, was sitting in front of Mr Chin and said the incident unfolded shortly after takeoff.
"We were about five or 10 minutes into takeoff and the fella behind me was just not very well. The airline attendant picked up on that pretty quickly, she tried to get him to respond, but he wasn't responding.
"She very, very efficiently pulled him down on to the floor and got the resuscitation pack out and brought him around with the assistance of the other two crew.
"The crew were exceptional and everyone on the plane was extremely impressed.
"Once he'd been shocked, he came back around," Mr Woods said.
"They isolated him on the ground, they had him in the recovery position and the machine keeps going, it monitors the heart just to see if CPR's required."
The plane then turned around and Mr Chin was rushed to hospital, he said.
"He wasn't very well, but he was certainly breathing and everything by the time we'd landed."
Mr Woods estimated the captain landed the small twin-engined turboprop aircraft five minutes after the flight crew resuscitated Mr Chin.
"The emergency landing was very well done, it was perfect, it was a very quick descent, but obviously they were trying to make it as comfortable [as possible]."
A St John Ambulance spokesman said Mr Chin was taken to Dunedin Hospital in "a very serious condition". Otago Daily Times
