Parents Accidentally Leave Their Sleeping Child Behind on Flight

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If you travel often enough, you’ve likely forgotten an item or two on an airplane. Usually, that item is something small and insignificant like a pair of sunglasses, a book, or perhaps a cellphone. Once in a while, it's something startling, like a five-foot snake. But for two parents in China, that forgotten item was a bit more precious, as they forgot their 10-year-old daughter in the back of a plane.

After all the passengers disembarked from a China Southern Airlines flight at Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport, crew members began to clean and ready the plane for their next guests. However, as TravelPulse reports, one crew member was stunned to find a sleeping little girl in the last row of the aircraft.

Once the crew realized the girl had been sitting separately from her parents, they woke the sleeping child and asked her for a number to contact her family. Her father told China Southern Airlines officials that they mistakenly assumed their daughter would follow them off the plane to collect their luggage.

Related: 3-month-old Baby Questioned About ‘Terrorist Activities’ Thanks to Grandpa’s Mistake

While it may sound unbelievable that adults would forget children inside an aircraft, it’s not entirely unheard of. As TravelPulse shared, in December two parents were left understandably furious after learning their 12-year-old daughter was left unattended at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, despite having paid $300 to have her accompanied at all times by a chaperone. And In September, JetBlue accidently placed a 5-year-old returning home alone on the wrong flight, sending him to Boston instead of New York.