Overview

• A 10-year-old boy was left unattended at Barcelona El Prat Airport after staff found his passport expired and lacking the required visa
• A TikTok video by an air traffic coordinator went viral with over 300,000 views and spurred airport personnel to summon police
• The flight carrying the parents and their younger, validly documented 3-year-old sibling was forced to return so the family could be reunited at the airport police station
• Inspector Serafin Giraldo said the parents did not view the episode as abandonment because they had called on a relative to care for their son
• Spanish investigators are assessing the parents’ potential legal liability for child abandonment while social services probe the family’s welfare