Reach for the Skies: Afghan Baby Girl Born Mid-Flight is Named After Plane

Forget the back of a taxi, an Afghan baby girl who was born mid-flight was named after the plane she was born on. 

Her parents were escaping the chaotic takeover by the Taliban regime through the Kabul airport. They named their little girl Reach, after the plane’s call sign: Reach 828.

The baby’s mother was experiencing complications with the birth– low blood pressure, but there was no doctor on board to help. Flight attendants advised the pilot, Captain Wolters, of the situation, and he made the life saving decision to drop the plane to a lower altitude. 

The Commander reasoned that the drop in altitude would raise the cabin pressure and by extension the mother’s blood pressure. Wolters’ quick, strategic thinking helped stabilize her, saving both the life of the mother and her child, CBS News reported.

Captain Wolters has high hopes for baby, Reach: He smiled as he told reporters that, “As you can well imagine, being an Air Force fighter pilot, it’s my dream to watch that young child called Reach grow up and be a U.S. citizen and fly a United States Air Force fighter,” the commander said. 

The Commander’s hopes are a poetic ambition for a baby that made it out to safety: Reach is one of three babies that are known to have been born on their escape flight from the fall of Afghanistan.

This flight was among the several that made it out before the U.S. turned over the Kabul Airport to the Taliban, today.

After an emergency landing, medical personnel rushed on to the tarmac to take the mother and her new baby to the hospital. 

The Air Force tweeted out that the mother and baby are both doing well.