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Posted: Fri, 12 Sept 2003 5:48 ACST

Flight diverted as court orders toddler off plane
Singapore Airlines says it will participate in investigations to see if a three-year-old boy could have been prevented from boarding an aircraft in Sydney, New South Wales, last night.

Airline spokesman Stephen Foreshaw says the Family Court ordered the flight to be diverted to Darwin, in the Northern Territory, because the boy was the subject of an order preventing him from leaving the country.

The boy boarded the flight with a woman.

Mr Foreshaw says the incident will be the subject of an investigation to determine how airlines can work with the authorities in such cases.

"We are very interested in talking to the authorities about whether something could be done to prevent this diversion from having to take place, to prevent this boy from having to get on the aircraft in the first place," Mr Foreshaw said.

"Obviously it's very distressing for a very young child to be involved in something like this.

"It's also very inconvenient for the other 370 passengers on the aircraft to have to be diverted in to Darwin."

Mr Foreshaw say the aircraft had to make a wide diversion from its intended flight path.

"The flight was on the ground only for a short time, only under an hour," he said.

"That enabled the police to take the boy off the aircraft, to unload the luggage that was accompanying that boy and for the pilot to file a new flight plan to continue onto Singapore.

"The end result, however, will be that the aircraft will be around two hours late in to Singapore."

Mr Foreshaw says cost tens of thousands of dollars to divert the Boeing 747 to Darwin.

"There's obviously a very high cost - the cost of landing, of handling the aircraft on the ground, the cost of fuel and so on, all add up," he said.

"But fundamentally, the issue that the court is actually rightly concerned about is the welfare of the child.

"To that extent, the extent that there is a cost, we'll obviously work through what that cost is, we'll work through any processes that might be available to recover that cost."

The airline will ask the Australian Federal Police how the boy was able to board the flight.

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