Mother removed from flight after baby makes mess

By Wu Jin
0 Comment(s)Print E-mail China.org.cn, March 3, 2015
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A mainland mother is forced to leave a plane owned by Hong Kong Dragon Airlines Limited after she argues with a stewardess onboard in the toilet when the airliner was about to take off.

A mainland mother surnamed Liu was forced to leave a plane owned by Hong Kong Dragon Airlines Limited after she argued with a stewardess onboard in the toilet when the airliner was about to take off, the Beijing News reported today.

According to several passengers onboard the airliner, which was flying from Hong Kong to Beijing, the stewardess quarreled with Liu who was using the sink to clean off the excrement from her one-and-half-year-old baby after the boy relieved himself on a disposable diaper on his seat.

The stewardess called the captain amid the dispute under whose order the mother and her baby were forced to leave the airplane, escorted by the ground staff and police. Liu gave her apologies to the passengers onboard in tears and asked them to make a video of the incident before leaving.

Although Liu booked another flight to arrive in Beijing without much delay, she still felt humiliated and confused at the treatment she received from the Hong Kong airline.

"It's impossible for a one-year-old to control himself onboard," said Liu, "when the stewardess questioned me why I didn't close the door I said I just had no time to close it."

The mother also recalled that the stewardess even suspected that her baby may not be well and have contracted Ebola.

Her account was supported by a passenger who said in a video recorded onboard that a simple process to clean up a baby in the toilet caused the family to leave the airplane. And the crew members onboard said that they suspected it had something to do with the Ebola virus.

Hong Kong Dragon Airlines Limited denied the Ebola allegation and said they reacted to Liu's misconduct after receiving complaints from passengers onboard.

Crew members are permitted to ask passengers to leave a plane or make the flight turn around when they believe the safety or the interests of the public are being endangered, Zhu Xiaoding, a lawyer from Cailiang Law Firm, said in an interview with the Beijing News. "But the aviation law is not specific about whether cleaning a baby's bottom in a toilet after it has left excrement on a disposable diaper is a conduct that harms the public interest."

Relations between mainland travelers and Hong Kong locals have soured in the past few years, exemplified by incidents such as the exposure of a mainland baby urinating on the street, the anti-parallel traders campaign and controversies over personal trips from the mainland to Hong Kong.

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