Share
News

Child's 'Demonic' Screams Recorded by Passenger on 8-Hour Flight

Share

As a father of three, I’m sympathetic to parents who try to fly with unruly children. Something about the encapsulated isolation of a plane seems to bring out bad behavior in kids.

But when it comes to a certain eight-hour-long Lufthansa flight that occurred in August 2017, my thoughts are definitely with the poor passengers.

New York artist Shane Townley recorded the misbehavior of a young child who uttered “demonic screams” for almost the entirety of the flight.



The video inauspiciously begins with the child scaling seats and bridging his body across the rows. According to Townley’s on-screen captions, this was apparently prior to takeoff — and things only got worse from there.

Trending:
Prince Harry Named in Major Sex Trafficking Lawsuit Against Rapper

Shoving himself above the seat, the youngster begins letting out high-pitched shrieks that soon escalate to full-throated howls.

His mother asks a flight attendant to “get the wifi going so we can get the iPad going.”

Unfortunately, the flight couldn’t boot up its wifi until the plane was in the air. And even once the mother could connect her tablet to the internet, it did little to calm the child down.

The timestamped video shows the youngster moving up and down the aisles screaming at the top of his lungs and then climbing a seat to pound at the plane’s panels.

Hour after hour ticks by with only intermittent breaks in the screeching, and the boy continues yowling even as passengers deplane at the end of the flight.

Would you let your child behave this way on a plane?

Though Townley uploaded the video months ago, it only recently went viral, racking up over 973,000 views as of press time — and drawing the ire of countless social-media psychologists. Many aimed their critiques at the mother’s parenting of the boy.

“If this started before the plane took off, the plane should have taxied back to the terminal and kicked the kid and his parents off,” one individual wrote. “This kind of behavior is just unacceptable.”

“Call an exorcist,” someone else said. But others highlighted the possibility that the child might have faced some sort of disability.

“Who’s to say this child didn’t have a hidden disability?” one comment read. “My son is autistic and couldn’t do a long haul flight.”

Related:
Islamic Extremists Abduct at Least 200 People, Most of Them Women and Children


Indeed, a Lufthansa spokesman told The Daily Mail that the company couldn’t comment in detail about the situation due to the “individual’s medical privacy.”

But the company added that the majority of the passengers “were quite understanding of the situation at hand.”

So what do you think, readers? Is this a clear-cut case of poor parenting or was there another dynamic at work?

Truth and Accuracy

Submit a Correction →



We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.

Tags:
Share
A graduate of Wheaton College with a degree in literature, Loren also adores language. He has served as assistant editor for Plugged In magazine and copy editor for Wildlife Photographic magazine.
A graduate of Wheaton College with a degree in literature, Loren also adores language. He has served as assistant editor for Plugged In magazine and copy editor for Wildlife Photographic magazine. Most days find him crafting copy for corporate and small-business clients, but he also occasionally indulges in creative writing. His short fiction has appeared in a number of anthologies and magazines. Loren currently lives in south Florida with his wife and three children.
Education
Wheaton College
Location
Florida
Languages Spoken
English
Topics of Expertise
Entertainment, Faith, Travel




Conversation