DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Caribbean Air­lines has con­firmed that one of its flights be­came an un­like­ly de­liv­ery room mid-air, af­ter a pas­sen­ger gave birth while en route from Ja­maica to New York, though the air­line in­sists no emer­gency was de­clared dur­ing the in­ci­dent.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports,flight BW005, a Boe­ing 737 Max 8 trav­el­ling from Kingston to New York on Sat­ur­day, was forced to pri­ori­tise a swift land­ing af­ter the woman went in­to labour at cruis­ing al­ti­tude. What be­gan as a rou­tine in­ter­na­tion­al flight quick­ly turned in­to a high-al­ti­tude birth, with crew step­ping in to man­age the sit­u­a­tion.

In a state­ment to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, the air­line de­scribed the in­ci­dent as a “med­ical event” han­dled in ac­cor­dance with es­tab­lished pro­ce­dures.

“Up­on ar­rival, the moth­er and new­born were at­tend­ed to by med­ical per­son­nel and are re­ceiv­ing the nec­es­sary care,” CAL said.

CAL praised its crew for what it called a calm and pro­fes­sion­al re­sponse un­der pres­sure, en­sur­ing the safe­ty and com­fort of pas­sen­gers on board.

“Caribbean Air­lines al­so con­firms that no emer­gency was de­clared dur­ing the flight. We re­spect­ful­ly ask that the pri­va­cy of the pas­sen­ger and her fam­i­ly be ob­served at this time.”

But air traf­fic con­trol au­dio, first re­port­ed by in­ter­na­tion­al me­dia, cap­tured the ur­gency un­fold­ing in the cock­pit.

“De­scend and main­tain 3000, Caribbean 005, and we have a pas­sen­ger that’s go­ing in­to labour at this time, and we’d like to con­tin­ue di­rect Ze­tal,” the pi­lot said, ac­cord­ing to record­ings cit­ed by the New York Post.

The re­quest was ini­tial­ly mis­un­der­stood.

“We have a pas­sen­ger, a preg­nant pas­sen­ger, who’s go­ing in­to labour at this time. Re­quest­ing di­rect Ze­tal,” the pi­lot clar­i­fied.

Con­trollers im­me­di­ate­ly cleared the air­craft for a more di­rect ap­proach in­to John F Kennedy In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, with emer­gency med­ical teams po­si­tioned to meet the flight on ar­rival.

As the air­craft de­scend­ed, the sit­u­a­tion had al­ready tak­en a dra­mat­ic turn.

“Kennedy Tow­er, Caribbean Air­lines 005, de­scend­ing through 2,200 for 2,000 di­rect Ze­tal, with one woman in labour on board,” the pi­lot re­port­ed.

By the time the plane touched down, the de­liv­ery had been com­plet­ed — con­firmed in a brief but telling ex­change with ground con­trol.

“Caribbean five, ground. Is it out yet?” an of­fi­cial asked.

“Yes, sir,” the pi­lot replied.

The air­line has not re­leased fur­ther de­tails on the con­di­tion of the moth­er or child, but both were hand­ed over to med­ical per­son­nel up­on land­ing.