A young mother on a flight from Saudi Arabia to Malaysia reportedly had the shock of her life when she realised she had accidentally left her baby behind in the airport terminal.

The Saudi Arabian Airlines flight to Kuala Lumpur returned to its gate in King Abdulaziz airport, Jeddah after the panicked woman alerted cabin crew that she had forgotten to bring her child.

A video of the pilot requesting Air Traffic Control in Arabic and English for permission to return has gone viral on social media.

“May God be with us. Can we come back or what?” he is heard asking.

One of the surprised controllers can then be heard telling a colleague: “This flight is requesting to come back…a passenger forgot her baby in the waiting area, the poor thing.”

He then adds: “OK, head back to the gate. This is totally a new one for us!”

The Gulf News reported that the bizarre incident took place over the weekend, implying that the plane was already in the air. However, some reports have suggested that the flight had not yet taken off, and the sequence of events is unclear from the video.

The story ended happily, with the mother and baby reunited.