A Saudi Arabian Airlines plane has reportedly been forced to turn around after a woman accidentally left behind some precious cargo -- specifically, her baby.

Flight SV832 from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia was en route to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia when the woman realised her terrible mistake -- leaving her baby at the terminal of the King Abdul Aziz International Airport, according to Gulf News.

After alerting cabin crew, the pilot was forced to turn the entire plane around, and his request was captured in a video that has since gone viral.

In the recording, a stunned air traffic control operator can be heard asking the pilot to "confirm reason" for turning around.

"A passenger left her baby in the terminal, now she refuses to continue the flight," he responds.

A Saudi Arabian Airlines plane was reportedly forced to turn around after a mother left her baby behind at the airport. (iStock)

Generally, flights are only granted permission to turn around in the case of an emergency, so staff weren't quite sure how to deal with the issue of a mother forgetting her child.

According to a report from Gulf News, the pilot says: "May God be with us. Can we come back or what?"

A staff member is then heard discussing out of frame: "This flight is requesting to come back ... a passenger forgot her baby in the waiting area, the poor thing."

A controller responds to the pilot: "Okay, head back to the gate. This is totally a new one for us."

It's not clear from the viral recording whether the plane had already taken off, or it was preparing to take off when the mother realised she'd forgotten her baby.

The video has garnered more than 531,000 views on YouTube since being posted by user Dayim. on March 10, 2019.