A woman passenger delivered a baby boy on board an IndiGo flight that was travelling from Delhi to Bengaluru. On Wednesday evening, at around 7.40 pm, the baby was delivered prematurely on flight 6E 122. The airlines confirmed that both the baby and the mother are healthy. “We just got information that a baby boy was born in our flight enroute 6E 122 Delhi - BLR. Flight landing at 19:40. All operations normal. Mother and child are healthy. Congratulations to all. Kudos to your training Team First Aid,” read an official statement from IndiGo airlines.
“We confirm that a baby boy was delivered prematurely on flight 6E 122 from Delhi to Bangalore. There are no further details available.” The woman who was around 32 weeks pregnant was lucky that Dr Sailaja Vallabhaneni who works as a Consultant, Foetal Medicine, at Cloudnine Hospital at Bengaluru’s Old Airport Road was on the same flight.
Fifteen minutes into the flight, the crew made a call for a doctor and that's when Dr Sailaja went near the passenger only to realise that the woman's water had broken.
"My priority was the wellbeing of the child. Many times during our internships and PG, we have women who come in who are in labour and need support immediately. We don’t think at that time if she is HIV positive even, or if she has another communicable illness. The instinct to save lives and do what we are supposed to do takes over. That’s what happened here too,” Dr Sailaja says.
The woman safely delivered the baby in the airplane washroom. Dr Sailaja says that the baby was delivered with placenta, which she cut with a pair of scissors sterilised with hand sanitiser. The baby weighed around two kilos, but was healthy, she told TNM.
Read the doctor's interview here.
Passengers on the flight have tweeted about how helpful and calm the crew is through the entire delivery.
The baby and the mother were given a warm welcome by the airline crew and ground staff after they landed at the Kempegowda International Airport in Bengaluru. Visuals showed the mother being taken to an ambulance in a wheelchair as the crew held posters reading ‘Welcome to namma Bengaluru’ and applauding.
Other photographs showed the baby boy, wrapped in a blanket, being held by several members of the crew including a pilot and a doctor inside the aircraft. Meanwhile, social media users are already speculating if the baby boy will get a lifetime free ticket on IndiGo flights. There have been two instances in the past of airlines giving lifetime tickets to a baby delivered onboard an aircraft. Back in 2017, Jet Airways had given free flight tickets for life to a boy born on one of its flights between Saudi Arabia and India.
Budget carrier AirAsia, in 2009, offered the same to a Malaysian mother and her newborn. The Bengaluru airport meanwhile is just starting to recover from the pandemic lockdown. Airport authorities had recently told TNM that the passenger traffic has been steadily increasing, but it is still only 30% of what the traffic used to be pre-pandemic.
Amazing scenes. Baby born mid-air on @IndiGo6E Delhi - Bangalore flight today, helped by the airline's crew.
— Tarun Shukla (@shukla_tarun) October 7, 2020
Future IndiGo pilot perhaps. #aviation #avgeek #india pic.twitter.com/0rJm7B5suQ
Was on @indigo6E 122flight to BLR,woman gives birth to a baby boy mid-air,amazing team work of Indigo flight attdnts.Cabin crew is not just there to pour teacoffee in ur cups.Thy r well trained 2 handl any kind of situations on board wich includes child birth as well.@forever.6e pic.twitter.com/lcmfMZnc30
— Moses Marton (@MosesMarton) October 7, 2020