'I Forgot My Baby At The Airport': Plane Turned Back As Passenger Left Her Child Behind

Air traffic staff, who called the situation “a totally new one for us,” gave the pilot permission to turn around and return to the airport.

March 12, 2019

Photo by: Saudia Boeing 787-9 on final approach at Istanbul Airport [Mehmet Mustafa Celik/Wikimedia Commons]

Saudia Boeing 787-9 on final approach at Istanbul Airport [Mehmet Mustafa Celik/Wikimedia Commons]

By: Catherine Townsend

JEDDAH, SAUDI ARABIA — A plane was forced to return to the airport in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, after a panicked passenger realized that she had left her baby at the terminal.

The Saudia plane was en route to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, but turned around and flew back to the King Abdul Aziz International Airport after the mother alerted crew members to her situation.

Newsweek reported that the air traffic control operators communicated with the pilots via radio as they tried to figure out a solution to the crisis.

An audio recording of the conversation has been posted on YouTube, where the video has received almost 1 million views.

“May God be with us. Can we come back or what?” the pilot can be heard asking the air traffic controllers. “This flight is requesting to come back … a passenger forgot her baby in the waiting area, the poor thing.”

Air traffic staff, who called the situation “a totally new one for us,” gave the pilot permission to turn around and return to the airport.

On social media, thousands of commenters have praised the pilot’s quick thinking, while others have criticized the mother. According to news reports, the mother and her baby were reunited after the plane returned to Jeddah.

Other Home Alone-style incidents have been reported in the media in the past, including the German couple who left their five-year-old daughter at an airport in Stuttgart in October 2018.

In that case, the woman told police that she and her husband drove separate cars to the airport – and that each one believed that the other had driven their daughter.

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