Probably one of the worst fears as a parent would be forgetting your child in a Home Alone-esque incident and accidentally leaving them to their own devices.
It doesn’t even bear thinking about, so you can only imagine how one woman felt recently when she realised – mid-flight – that she’d left her baby at the airport.
The Saudi plane she was on was forced to turn around shortly after take-off when the mother realised her baby wasn’t with her and demanded to be reunited with her child.
.jpg){kind=link}
As reported by Gulf News, the plane was en-route to Kuala Lumpur over the weekend when the Saudi mother informed cabin crew she had left her baby at the boarding area in King Abdul Aziz International Airport.
Footage which appears to show the pilot asking air traffic controllers for permission to return to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, has since gone viral; more than 100K people have since viewed the video.
In the video, the pilot can be heard talking to operators, who were seemingly caught by surprise and were left trying to figure out what the protocol was for something as bizarre as this situation.
You can watch the video below:
After making contact with the operators, the pilot is heard asking them:
May God be with us. Can we come back or what? This flight is requesting to come back… a passenger forgot her baby in the waiting area, the poor thing.
After confirming the flight number – SV832 – the operator can then be heard asking another colleague about the protocol, before asking the pilot to confirm the reason for turning around.
At this, the pilot replies:
We told you, a passenger left her baby in the terminal and refuses to continue the flight.
The operator then gives the pilot permission to return to the airport, before adding: ‘This is a totally new one for us!’
As reported by Gulf News, many praised the pilot for his ‘humanity’ by agreeing to turn the plane around and return to the airport after considering the situation an ’emergency case’.
However, others have criticised the mum for being careless and for forgetting her child in the first place.
The Sun reports no further information about the mother or the child was available, but it appears the two were reunited once the plane returned to the airport.
If you have a story you want to tell, send it to stories@unilad.co.uk.
A Broadcast Journalism Masters graduate who went on to achieve an NCTJ level 3 Diploma in Journalism, Lucy has done stints at ITV, BBC Inside Out and Key 103. While working as a journalist for UNILAD, Lucy has reported on breaking news stories while also writing features about mental health, cervical screening awareness, and Little Mix (who she is unapologetically obsessed with).