Editor’s Note: Former Kyiv Post intern Beatrice Hudson was a passenger on the Feb. 3 Qatar Airways Boeing 777-300ER flight from Doha to Bangkok that was forced to make an emergency landing in Kolkata, Indian, when a Thai woman went into labor and gave birth to a boy. The mother and child are reportedly fine. The baby was delivered with the help of Ukrainian physician Alena Fedchenko. Hudson sent us her account.
Drifting to sleep on a late-night flight, I was woken up with bright lights.
Immediately, I feared an announcement along the lines of a failure of an engine or an unavoidable crash. But gas masks hadn’t been dropped, and the plane didn’t exactly feel like it was falling to the ground. Or at least, it didn’t feel like I thought it would feel to lose an engine or wing of a plane. Yet, the flight attendants were rushing up and down the aisles, in obvious panic.
Then an announcement was made, asking whether a doctor or a nurse was on board. A heart attack? Fatal allergy? With questions coming left and right, one of the flight attendants revealed that “someone is about to give birth on the flight.”
With four more hours to go on the flight and thousands of miles in the air, the Qatar airways staff proceeded to prepare for an extra passenger on board. We were all told to remain in our seats, out of respect for the soon-to-be-mother. The staff seemed to grab every first aid kit in hand and rush to the back of the plane.
Unable to see what was going on, even in the 23rd row, where I was sitting, I was able to hear the woman’s screams from the back of the plane’s kitchen. Then the seat belt sign had flashed on and we all felt the plane drop down quickly.
The pilot himself made an announcement that we will be landing in 20 minutes, two hours before our scheduled landing in Bangkok.
Again, my mind went to thoughts of a crash. The people next to me woke up thinking we were landing early. But, the pilot himself then explained the baby was born and the mother needed immediate medical attention, therefore we will be landing in Calcutta, India.
Finally, we were able to catch a glimpse of the newborn being carried up towards the front of the plane to be wrapped up in business class blankets, followed by applause.
Landing in Kolkata, we had no idea how long it would be until we would make it to Bangkok — 30 minutes, two hours or 24? The staff said they had no idea how long it would take for the ambulance to come, and Bangkok airport to have space for a plane to land.
Hours later, the pilot informed that it was his signing the birth certificate and immigration forms for the newborn that was taking the time.
Apparently being born in the air creates a problem of what to say for the place of birth.
