Forgotten Baby Forces Saudia Flight to Turnaround!

The world continues to amaze. When you feel you have seen it all, something bizarre happens!

One such incident happened over the weekend (likely March 9, 2019) when a mother reportedly left her baby in the terminal before boarding the flight.

The Incident

This incident happened on Saudia Flight SV832 travelling from Jeddah to Kuala Lumpur. A video of the control room has been put on YouTube (link) and has been viewed half a million times at last count.

Various news reports say it happened over the weekend. The video was uploaded on March 10, 2019. Looking at the flight details, the only plausible date is March 9, 2019. This is when the flight was delayed by an hour.

A lot of the conversation happens in Arabic, so I am putting the translation here (Source: Gulf News)

Pilot (to ATC): May God be with us. Can we come back or what?

ATC operator (to colleague): This flight is requesting to come back…a passenger forgot her baby in the waiting area, the poor thing!

ATC operator (to pilot): Re-confirm the reason for turning back?

Pilot: We told you, a passenger left her baby in the terminal and refuses to continue the flight.

ATC operator: Ok, head back to the gate. This is totally a new one for us!

The Rumors

This has been widely reported across both news outlets and click-bait websites. As it happens with any news generated by social media these days, a lot of rumors have been added to make it sound even more unreal. Seriously, it is quite strange as it is.

It is alleged that the flight had taken-off and was forced to return. This does not appear to be correct as per FlightRadar. It is highly unlikely that the flight could take-off, stabilize, turn around, land and take-off again within an hour.

I would bet that the flight had left the gate and was preparing for take-off when the incident happened.

The second rumor is whether the baby was alone or with a caregiver. I do not think the video proves one thing over another. It is quite possible that the baby and the caregiver (lets say a nanny) could not board the flight in time or lost track of it. Please note that I am not exonerating the mother or anything. I just think we shouldn’t come to a judgment without knowing all facts.

My Perspective

I know a lot of memes can be generated on this just from movie titles and songs – Baby Got Back, Baby’s Day Out, Baby (Not) on Board, Oops I did it!. A lot of these are funny.

However, spare a thought for the woman. As a parent myself, I had decided never to question someone else’s parenting without knowing the circumstances.