A 72-year-old airline passenger from China died Saturday after being detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers, the second such incident at Honolulu International Airport this year.

Nanxi Ye, a visitor from Wanzhou, China, was detained by Customs officers shortly after 10 a.m. Saturday because of an issue with his passport, said an official who asked not to be identified, citing an ongoing investigation.

At about noon, Ye complained of shortness of breath and collapsed. Emergency medical personnel at the airport were summoned.

Ye died of spontaneous intra-cerebral hemorrhage, according to the city medical examiner's office.

Jim Kosciuk, spokesman for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection office in Honolulu, did not return a call seeking comment yesterday. Officers reached at the Customs office at the airport declined comment.

The incident happened nearly eight months after a 14-day-old boy from American Samoa who was flown here for medical treatment died after he and his mother were detained at the airport.

According to a lawsuit filed by the parents of infant Michael Tony Futi, the child died after arriving from American Samoa on Feb. 8 for pre-arranged emergency treatment at Kapi'olani Medical Center for Women & Children.

Michael Futi was diagnosed with a heart murmur shortly after birth and medical personnel in American Samoa arranged for his "urgent" treatment at Kapi'olani, the lawsuit said.

Luaiopu Futi, his mother, received an emergency visa waiver from Customs Border Patrol before leaving American Samoa with her child. They were accompanied by a registered nurse, Arizona Veavea, the suit said.

On arrival, they were detained in a locked room at the airport, despite protesting that the child "urgently needed to get to the hospital," the suit alleged.

The baby went into medical distress while the adults and another passenger in the detention area were pounding on the door and "screaming desperately for help," the suit said.

When emergency medical personnel arrived, the baby was taken to Kaiser Permanente's Moanalua Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.

The lawsuit was filed Sept. 8. The family's Honolulu attorney, Rick Fried, said information from the medical examiner's office shows Michael Futi was without oxygen for 43 minutes before 911 was called, despite Futi's mother and his nurse and another man in the holding room pounding on a door and pleading for help.