Saudi Arabia: Flight returns after mother forgets baby at airport
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'... a passenger forgot her baby in the waiting area, the poor thing. May God be with us. Can we come back or what?' the pilot asked air traffic control. (Video of the incident has gone viral.)
Flights around the world are sometimes forced to turn back in the event of a major emergency.
Something like that happened recently in Saudi Arabia.
A plane took off from Jeddah's King Abdul Aziz International Airport for Kuala Lumpur International airport and all was going well until a passenger told the crew she had forgotten her baby back at the airport.
She told the flight crew she had forgotten her baby back at the boarding area.
The plane had been flying for a few minutes.
Video (below) of the incident has gone viral.
"This flight is requesting to come back…a passenger forgot her baby in the waiting area, the poor thing. May God be with us. Can we come back or what?" the pilot can be heard asking air traffic control.
After noting down the flight number, the operator can be heard asking fellow colleagues about the protocol, before asking the pilot to re-confirm the reason for turning back.
"We told you, a passenger left her baby in the terminal and refuses to continue the flight," the pilot of the flight from Jeddah to Kuala Lumpur says.
The operator clears the flight to return, exclaiming, "Ok, head back to the gate. This is totally a new one for us!"
The mother and her child were later reunited. And the pilot lauded by social media users for coming to the rescue of the distraught mother.
Wow. Good call by the pilot and air traffic control.
— Nathan Douglas Ngumi (@NathanNgumi) March 12, 2019
Alternatively if the Jeddah - Kuala Lumpur flights are very frequent, say hourly departures, they could have declined to turn round, instead making arrangements for the baby to travel with the next flight.
(With inputs from ANI)