Infant falls ill on Jet flight

A Jet Airways flight made an emergency landing in Mumbai on Tuesday afternoon after a 14-day-old baby girl fell ill on board.

The infant, who is yet to be named, was reportedly feeling uneasy when the flight was a few hundred nautical miles away from the city.

The pilot of flight 9W-444 coming to the city from Bangalore called up the airport operation command centre at 2:10 pm seeking permission for a priority landing.

The airport operator provides a flight priority to land in cases of such emergencies even if the plane is way behind in the queue.

The infant happens to be the nephew of former Mumbai cricketer Nilesh Kulkarni.

At around 2 pm the former left-arm spinner and Jenny John Cheriathu, a consulting pediatrician with Jupiter hospital in Thane, who had accompanied Kulkarni there, were frantically filling in forms seeking permission from airport managers to take the ambulance to the tarmac.

“An ambulance from Jupiter hospital came to receive the infant,” said a Mumbai International Airport Limited spokesperson. “The flight landed at 2:26 pm, following which the baby was provided oxygen. Our doctors were present at the airfield. However, our role was limited to shifting the patient to the ambulance."

The infant was then rushed to the Jupiter hospital. The infant, travelling with her mother Sanchita Sen, has a congenital hip disorder.

The family, based in Bangalore, has come to the city for a surgery. Cheriathu said that the infant also had some genital complication at birth. “We have begun the treatment,” he said.