An infant was abandoned at a Tel Aviv airport by his parents who tried to board their flight to Belgium without him after they failed to purchase a ticket for the child, authorities said.
The unnamed parents, who both held Belgium passports, had arrived at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel-Aviv Tuesday with their baby, planning to board a Ryanair flight to Brussels, the Israeli Airport Authority told local Channel 12.
But according to officials, the family arrived at Terminal 1 late, after the check-in counter had closed, and the parents were either unable or unwilling to buy a ticket for their child.
The mom and dad then left the carrier with their son next to the check-in counter while they rushed toward the security line so they could board the flight.
A short cellphone video that was reportedly recorded at the airport purports to show a woman looking at the baby in the carrier and exclaiming in Hebrew: “she left him here, I swear!”
Airport staff noticed the seemingly abandoned infant, followed the couple and urged them to return for their son, before notifying airport security and the police.
The parents with their baby in tow were then taken in for questioning, Channel 12 reported.
The couple and their baby ultimately did not make their flight, outlet Israel Today reported.
A Ryanair manager at the airport told Channel 12: “All our staffers were in shock. We’ve never encountered anything like this. We couldn’t believe what we were seeing.”
