Pinay whose labor pains forced landing of plane comes home

A 22-year-old Filipina who forced a Manila-bound Royal Dutch Airlines flight from Amsterdam to make an emergency landing at the airport of Alamaty, Kazakhstan last Oct. 25 due to labor pains finally came home to Manila with her two-week-old son.

Cagayan de Oro City native Betchell Bana said that she wanted to secure Filipino citizenship for her son, Karl Lorenz Martin, despite his having been born in Kazakhstan.

"I want him to be a Filipino. Because I’m a Filipino — his father and I are Filipinos," Banal told airport reporters.

Banal arrived in Manila via a Royal Dutch Airlines KLM Fight KL 803 that landed at the NAIA at 11:10 a.m. She was assisted off the flight in a wheelchair and she carried her sleeping infant in her arms.

The seven-months pregnant Banal was on her way home to Manila en route to Cagayan de Oro for a brief vacation on Oct. 25 and was on a Manila-bound KLM flight from Copenhagen, Denmark via Amsterdam when she suffered labor pains half an hour into the flight.

A fellow Filipino and passenger on the flight, Dr. Anthony Golez of the Department of Defense’s Office of Civil Defense, who examined Banal after she began labor, told the flight crew they needed to land the plane so Banal could give birth.

Banal said she was not due to give birth until Dec. 2.

Minutes after being carried off the plane, Banal gave birth to her son at the Alamaty airport.

She was taken to Mother and Child Hospital in Alamaty, where she and her son received medical care. Banal, a commerce student in the University of Cebu before she was accepted by the Danish government for a one-and-a-half year cultural study program, said that she was given full financial support by the Royal Dutch Airlines throughout her stay in Kazakhstan until she came home yesterday.

"They were very supportive of me," she said.

It was learned that Banal left for Denmark in March not knowing that she was pregnant by her boyfriend, who is also a student in Cagayan de Oro.

Gabriel "Bingo" Braganza, KLM regional marketing manager for the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei, said that it was the first time in KLM’s history that they had to make an emergency landing due to childbirth.

KLM will be celebrating its 55th anniversary this Dec. 5.

Braganza said that KLM is making arrangements for Banal and her son during their stay in Manila and for their air travel to Cagayan de Oro.