Couple Going on Vacation Abandon Son with Expired Passport at Airport

By Spooky on August 22nd, 2025 Category: News

An employee at Barcelona’s El Prat Airport recently recounted the “totally surreal” story of a couple who left their 10-year-old son at the terminal after discovering that his passport had expired.

Lilian Limasin, an air traffic controller at the El Prat Airport in Barcelona, recently took to TikTok to share an incredible story that took place at her workplace last month. Her day had started normally, but while handling the departure of a plane headed for Casablanca, Morocco, at 8:30 am, Limasin received an emergency message to ground the aircraft until further notice. Minutes earlier, Catalan police had found a small child wandering alone in the terminal, who told them that his parents had left without him. An emergency call was first made within the airport asking for the parents to come forward, but no one did, so the airport staff asked the child for information about his parents and realized that they were already on board the plane to Casablanca. That’s when the Spanish Civil Guard requested that the plane’s departure be stopped to resolve the matter.

Photo: Gabriel Stanciu/Unsplash

When the police questioned the 10-year-old boy’s parents, their explanation for leaving him alone at the airport was baffling. The couple wanted to go on vacation to their home country, Morocco, with their two children, but there was a big problem. Upon checking their documents for boarding, they realized their oldest son’s passport had expired. So, instead of canceling their vacation plans, they just left him at El Prat and called a relative to come pick him up while they hurried to catch their flight.

“His national passport had expired, so he was traveling with his Spanish passport, but it required a visa to be valid,” Lilian Limasin explained. “Because they didn’t have this visa, they left the child in the terminal and called a family member to come and pick him up.”

The air traffic controller added that the parents thought their actions were “perfectly normal,” but police obviously did not agree. The couple now stands accused of both abandoning the 10-year-old boy and causing a significant flight delay. According to Spanish news sources, authorities will determine what punishment to impose on them once the social services investigation is complete.

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