Plane diverts after baby born mid-air
A plane flying to Frankfurt was diverted after a mother gave birth. FILE PHOTO
What you need to know:
- With the help of three doctors and the flight crew, the unidentified woman delivered safely.
- In June, a newborn was awarded free flights for life after it was born prematurely mid-flight.
A trans-Atlantic flight from Bogota, Colombia, to Frankfurt, Germany, departed with 191 passengers on board but landed with 192.
This is after a woman gave birth over the Atlantic Ocean, compelling the pilot to divert the Lufthansa flight LH543 to Manchester Airport in England to drop off mother and baby.
HEALTHY
With the help of three doctors and the flight crew, the unidentified woman delivered safely.
The passenger jet, which is owned by the German airline, then continued to Frankfurt.
The airliner said both the mother and baby were healthy and taken to a hospital.
Lufthansa welcomed the new baby and congratulated the mother on Twitter.
“This time the stork was surely a crane,” the airliner said, referring to its logo of the crane bird.
MEDICAL CARE
A spokesperson for the airline said the mother and her newborn were then taken to a local hospital for further care.
“In order to give the best medical care and assistance to the mother and baby the crew decided to divert the flight to Manchester, where it landed at 1.09pm local time.
"The flight started at 21:00 local time in Bogota on July 25,” the airline said.
BIRTH
The mother and the newborn were safely de-boarded by an ambulance.
Although the spokesperson for the airline said births during flights are rare, with only 11 known cases on Lufthansa flights, cases of children being born thousands of feet above sea level have increased.
PREMATURE
In June, a newborn was awarded free flights for life after it was born prematurely mid-flight.
The lucky baby boy was born on a Jet Airways flight travelling from Dammam in Saudi Arabia to Kochi, India, compelling the flight to divert to the Indian city of Mumbai after his mother went into premature labour.
PAY DAY
The last airline to award unconditional, complimentary flights for life to an “air-born baby” was AirAsia when, in 2009, a passenger gave birth while on a two-hour flight within Malaysia from Penang to Kuching.
Not all mid-flight births mean a pay day for the parents, however.
In April, a mother went into labour while travelling with Turkish Airlines from Conakry to Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso.
The baby, safely delivered on board but premature at 28 weeks, received nothing more than a ride to hospital.
