<<Print>>A woman who gave birth on a plane to the US has been deported home to Taiwan without her baby and may be ordered to pay $30,000 for diverting the flight, according to Chinese and Taiwanese media.
The China Airlines flight, from Bali to Los Angeles, was forced to make an emergency landing in Alaska after the woman's waters broke six hours into the 19-hour flight.
Cabin crew and a doctor helped deliver the baby girl weeks early to a woman known only by her surname Jian.Passengers can be heard clapping and cheering.
However, the happiness soured when a former flight attendant with the airline revealed that the woman apparently failed to inform check-in staff she was 36 weeks pregnant.
In a post on her Facebook page, Lucienne Chen, said the woman told flight attendants she was just “feeling a little bloated”, according to the Shangaiist news site.
When she went into labour, she was told to lie down and prepare for delivery but refused, saying she would give birth later, and kept asking: “Are we in US air space yet?”
Amira Rajput, who captured the delivery on his phone, told ABC News that the new mother was challenged by a border patrol agent who came aboard the plane after landing and asked to see her passport.
"He told me that this is something foreign women do, to try and deliver overseas for citizenship," said Mr Rajput.
Taiwanese media reported that she had since been deported by US immigration authorities, covering her face with a jacket as she flew into Taipei airport.
They reported her newborn child is now under the care of state authorities in Alaska and that she faced a bill for $30,000.
"Not only did you take the lives of both yourself and your child as a joke, you also took the schedules of a plane full of people as a joke - all because of your child's American passport,” wrote Ms Chen in a post that has been shared more than 200,000 times.
"An entire plane had to be diverted, causing scheduling problems for all the other innocent passengers.
"The crew also had to stay for the night in Alaska. Do you know the true social cost of your actions?"