Despite having no proper hospital equipment and the woman not speaking any English, British junior doctor Hassan Khan used all his know-how to deliver a healthy baby girl on board.
A British doctor has described the “miraculous” moment he helped a woman give birth while 35,000ft in the air on a passenger jet.
Junior doctor, Hassan Khan, delivered a healthy baby girl after a fellow passenger went into labour while on a flight from Jordan to London over the weekend.
The 28-year-old was flying with a group of friends, who were all coincidentally doctors, when an announcement was issued asking for medical help.
Speaking to Sky’s The UK Tonight, Dr Khan said all of his friends volunteered when the flight crew called for a doctor on board.
“Out of all of the flights that this could have possibly happened on, I would say this was a relatively good one given the number of medical staff available,” he told Sky News.
The group decided Dr Khan was best equipped to deal with the situation – but it was not exactly straightforward for the medic who works at Basildon Hospital in Essex.
Her water had broken and “she was about to deliver soon”, he said, adding that “she didn’t speak a word of English”.
Juggling the language barrier and a lack of the equipment one would usually find in a maternity ward, Dr Khan improvised and asked for the necessities to complete the birth.
Dr Khan said: “We needed some simple equipment like towels to dry the baby as soon as it comes out and wrap it up to keep it warm. Not many airlines at all are prepared for a birth to happen in the air.”
A 2019 study published in the International Society of Travel Medicine said there were only 74 infants born on commercial flights between 1929 and 2018 – 71 of whom survived the delivery.
It concluded despite the rarity of such births, medically trained passengers were key to helping with deliveries.