(I maintain an active suggestion thread. If you have any international cases you would like me to cover, comment on my account's pinned suggestion thread.
Suggestions take priority over my personal backlog.
A smaller, shorter mystery than usual, but I came across this one and figured I'd cover it anyway. There are almost no online news articles, and a lot of sources are actually YouTube videos, so any mistakes are the result of trying to research, even the auto translation of YouTube's auto CC.)
Born on March 11, 1933, Fermín Delgado Pinto lived a relatively humble life working the fields of his native Peru. No one had a single negative thing to say about Fermín; throughout his long life, he was never described as anything other than a very friendly man who valued his family above all else. Growing up near a coastal city in Peru, Fermín also had a fondness for the beach and fishing.
Even in his old age, Fermín remained cheerful and independent. He enjoyed taking long walks on his own, sometimes for hours on end, but he would always find his way back home safe and sound without any assistance, showing that he remained as sharp as ever. He was also in good health, he wasn't on any medications, had no documented conditions and showed no signs of dementia or cognitive decline.
In 2011, to be closer to his daughters and grandchildren, he left Peru behind and moved in with them in Peñalolén, a commune in the metropolitan area of the Chilean capital, Santiago.
In mid-March 2018, one of Fermín's daughters was due to celebrate her 25th wedding anniversary and wanted to do so in Lima, Peru, where a lot of her family still lived. It was meant to be a surprise, but Fermín found out, and he was adamant about joining her so he could visit the family as well.
The tickets were already paid for, so Fermín had to buy his separately, and at the last minute, this also meant that on the return flight, Fermín would have to travel alone. He would also arrive before his daughter. Initially, that was a deal breaker, but the ticket taker for LATAM assured her that Fermín could have an employee assist him in getting around the airport, disembarking, navigating the baggage claims, and getting through immigration and customs for no extra charge. With that, her worries were put at ease.
Their trip to Lima lasted two weeks, but now it was time for them to go home. Fermín's flight landed at Arturo Merino Benítez International Airport at 7:00 p.m. on April 2, 2018. His family members who remained in Chile were waiting for him at exit gate number 4 of the airport terminal, but he never arrived.
Now, concerned, they went to ask the airport staff, and they were quite unhelpful. They would restrict the family from entering certain areas to look for him and wouldn't even tell them if Fermín's flight had arrived or not, stating that they couldn't give out any information and insisting that they just be patient.
Unfornatuely, Fermín didn't own a cellphone of his own, so he couldn't be contacted directly. Instead, they called his daughter on her cellphone before she even boarded her own flight to let her know. A flight from Lima to Santiago is nearly 4 hours, and she spent those 4 hours constantly worried about her father.
When her own flight landed, Fermín was still missing. She then asked the airport staff what was going on, and they were just as obstructive. She wasn't allowed to enter certain areas, wasn't even told if the flight had landed yet and was told to go to Gate 4 and patiently wait for him.
Eventually, the family decided to split up and search the parts of the airport where the staff wouldn't restrict them from entering. One of his relatives waited at the gate adjacent to the road where all the taxis parked to pick up passengers, but the airport staff had her kicked out since she waited so long that they felt she was loitering.
With the airport seemingly doing all they could to not tell his family anything, they decided they would track down any passengers on that flight still in the airport and ask them directly about Fermín. They came across an elderly Colombian woman at the baggage claim area. Like Fermín, she was supposed to have an assistant, but instead, she was abandoned at the baggage claim and had been sitting in a wheelchair (even if they don't need them, they are usually given wheelchairs regardless) for hours.
Eventually, a security guard approached her and said, "You need to stand up and leave because they're going to be keeping you sitting here for hours." Fermín's family feared that if this woman had her assistant abandon her, the same was likely true for Fermín.
Eventually, his family found an officer stationed at the airport and told him what was going on. He assured his family that he would look into the situation and went to speak with the airport's staff. Knowing they couldn't exactly turn him away as easily as they did Fermín's family, they finally admitted that his flight arrived safely at its scheduled time.
So, naturally, the next question was where he had gone. They said that there was a problem with his luggage, so they kept him seated at the baggage claim in a wheelchair. According to them, Fermín was quite impatient, angry and didn't want to wait. Eventually, he felt the wait wasn't worth it, stood up from the wheelchair walked off on his own after his provided assistant left.
The officer and his family wanted to check the CCTV footage. However, the airport staff were initially resistant and said they couldn't show them the footage because it was time for the staff's shift change.
Of course, his family didn't consider that to be a valid excuse and forced the issue until the airport staff finally relented. After reviewing the footage, they knew why the staff didn't want them to see it; they had been less than forthcoming.
From the very beginning, Fermín had been unattended and had never waited in the baggage queue. Fermín approached the door leading to the street where all the taxi drivers were waiting, but rather than leaving, he turned back around, looking at all the people as he walked. Curiously, he was walking in the opposite direction from where his family would be waiting for him.
He walked by some food stalls until he approached another door leading to the street. This time, he walked through the door and left the airport. A taxi driver briefly spoke to him, asking if there was anywhere he could take him, but Fermín declined his offer. At 7:30 p.m., he approached an unidentified man, likely an employee of either the airport or the various public transportation networks at the airport, based on his neon jacket.
As this man has never been identified nor has he come forward, we likewise don't know the nature of their short interaction, but as he pointed in a direction that Fermín quickly walked toward, he was likely asking the man for directions of some kind.
The bus stop was in the direction the man pointed toward, and that seemed to be where he was going as CCTV footage captured him waiting in line. Likely owing to how long it was, Fermín left the line and walked straight ahead until the CCTV footage could no longer capture him. This marked the last time anyone had ever seen Fermín. The direction he was heading in, provided he didn't change directions once out of the camera's view, would've brought him toward a sector near Route 68, a highway running adjacent to the airport that connects Santiago to Valparaíso.
His family filed a missing persons report to the Carabineros, where it took 5 days for the report to be validated. During those 5 days, Fermín's family did their own investigation, printing and distributing several flyers and searching the land surrounding the airport, often having neighbours drive them around to help with their search.
If something had happened to Fermín, his family didn't think it would take long for them to hear about it. As Fermín didn't have a cellphone of his own, and he was known to take long walks by himself, his daughter decided to make a credential that Fermín would wear around his neck that contained two of his relatives' phone numbers, so if something did happen, whoever found him would know who to call. In addition, Fermín was carrying his ID and passport, so if he were dead, his body would easily be identified.
The family visited all the nearby morgues and hospitals to ask about Fermín, but he wasn't at any of them.
The Carabineros also did little to help, often telling them to just come back if they had any proof he was in danger and wouldn't even accompany them to any stores along Fermín's route to pull their CCTV footage, something that Fermín's family saw as unusual and pointed out how they felt the Carabineros weren't nearly as dismissive when it came to other missing person cases.
Both the airport and the airline, LATAM, also issued statements in which they denied having any responsibility for Fermín's disappearance and that they had followed all the proper procedures. In LATAM's case, they said they laid all the blame at the airport and said they're job was done once Fermín actually stepped off the plane.
As for what that job actually was, they claimed the assistant walked Fermín over to customs, and afterward, he indicated to them that he didn't require or want any further assistance, so they left to help other passengers.
On April 7, an official investigation finally took place, and instead of the Carabineros running it, it was taken over by the PDI. While the PDI added Fermín to Chile's missing persons database, they unfortunately didn't have any more luck in finding him compared to his family.
On April 9, witnesses came forward and reported seeing a man who looked like Fermín in the vicinity of the Pudahuel, Barrancas, and Pajaritos metro stations, but whether it truly was Fermín has never been verified.
Another lead came from a security guard at a construction site near Route 68. After hearing this tip, the family visited the site and spoke to all the security guards on duty. There, they stated that they had seen an elderly man matching Fermín's description on either the night of or another night after his disappearance. When the security guards approached the man and asked where he was going, he reportedly responded that he was heading to "Mapocho".
Mapocho could mean many things: the Mapocho River, Estación Mapocho, a cultural center station in downtown Santiago, or the Mapocho neighbourhood. Once again, whether this man was truly Fermín or not has never been verified.
His family hoped they might see him again once Fermín's pension came in, as he had memorized the days he would be paid his pension and would rush to collect them as early as possible. Unfortunately, Fermín's pension went unclaimed.
Fermín's family believe that he might be homeless. Fermín only had 9,000 Chilean pesos on his person, which wouldn't be enough if he entered a taxi and asked the driver to take him home. They believed that he might've been dropped off in the middle of Santiago after the driver realized he didn't have enough to pay the fare, where a confused and lost Fermín became one of the many elderly homeless people on the streets of Santiago.
Fueling their belief in this theory is the fact that his family actually found other missing elderly individuals during their search for Fermín, individuals who had that exact thing happen to them.
If he's still alive, Fermín Delgado Pinto would be 92 years old today. Anyone with information as to his whereabouts is urged to reach out to his family or contact the PDI.
Sources
pagina7.cl/actualidad/intensa-busqueda-adulto-mayor-desaparecio-en-aeropuerto-tras-llegar-a-chile/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EA_ckxBHfC0 (A lot of information I can only find in this video, but the pinned comment is from one of Fermín's grandchildren thanking the uploader, whom they personally requested to cover his case, so the information is likely accurate or else they probably would've corrected or called her out. I watched this with YouTube's auto CC, so apologies if I got anything wrong.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjrQLMFbZQw (This video is a news broadcast with the entirety of the CCTV footage shown)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RT8pje7h0eQ (This is an interview with one of his grandchildren)
The airport staff really fucked the family over, if they'd just been straight up with them about his plane having landed and that he walked off then they could have been quicker on his trail. Unbelievable.
Also what kind of airport doesn’t have an arrivals board in multiple places so people can see when flights are landing? Why are they treating the flight information like it’s some closely guarded airport secret? That’s just weird. Every airport I’ve been to, at least in the US, Mexico and the Caribbean, they have a board telling you when flights are taking off and landing.
The secrecy was definitely weird. I don’t understand why they were so defensive about giving out basic information. Something stinks.
My first thought was that something happened, like the man was injured or became sick and the airline and/or airport didn't want to take responsibility. That classic movie So Long At The Fair came to mind too. Someone gets sick at a hotel and a whole conspiracy ensues to protect the hotel from being blamed
Thank you for mentioning this film. I can see how it inspired a 1955 episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents called "Into Thin Air.”
Ooh I never saw that episode!! Gonna watch it in a few, thank you!!
Yes, there's actually an urban legend that goes around every so often- usually taking place in France- and it scared me as a kid cuz I thought it was real. I think there's probably multiple versions of it floating around.
Is that the one where the parent and child visit a hotel and the child leaves and when they get back the staff tell them the parent was never there?
Yes! They often distract the child with a long ride or sending them to various specialists or some such. (I like urban legends lol)
I do too! Took a folklore class at Ohio State in fall 2006 and was floored to find out that most of the local legends from my area had parallels in other parts of the state, sometimes so similar they were barely distinguishable from each other. Became a Snopes reader not long after that. It’s gotten to where I can often tell a plausibly legitimate story from an urban legend within a few words.
What are some tells.
Well, we know that he landed safely and was at least mobile afterwards. So if he got hurt or sick, I’d guess that it would have to have been after disembarking.
It does have an arrivals and departure boards. I've been flying there regularly since 2012. So, OPs account doesn't quite make sense, as you'd easily know when a flight had arrived or not.
However, I've experienced quite a few illegitimate taxi drivers. People who offer a lift for cheap and are parked in the main car park opposite (as opposed to the taxi rank).
I wonder, if he was picked up by one of those people, found he couldn't afford the fare or were simply robbed of possessions and abandoned.
Yeah, what's the harm in saying the plane landed at x time? I get not giving them personal info like whether a passenger was on the plane or not, but refusing to say if it landed? So bizarre
See this article for a similar case. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/family-of-victoria-kong-mourns-death-of-grandmother-who-wandered-from-airport/2013/05/08/e4f3fc12-b72c-11e2-b94c-b684dda07add_story.html
Paywall
https://archive.ph/Wom6E easy to fix. Here you go! :)
Thanks for sharing! That is so sad. I don't want to criticize searchers, but I feel like someone should have looked along walkable paths from the airport first.
Fucking eh. I was fucking raging reading this. It just got worse and worse. Poor man 😭😭😭 can't imagine the agony of the family.
I really hope everyone that personally failed this man are never able to sleep again
completely agree-that part pissed me off
This reminds me of the story of the elderly confused man who got trapped inside a shopping center. He got locked inside the underground staff tunnels and ended up passing away, no one found him for days.
I hate how society dismisses elderly people. If this was my grandparents… a combination of utter fury and pure heartbreak is what I would be feeling.
It's in either Sydney or Melbourne, right? I recall this as an Australian case. It looks like that specific shopping center has probably 10+km of unused corridors with auto-locked(?) gates and no cell phone service and they are not covered by the security guards' routine. I don't even know why they designed that maze just to leave it there collecting dust. I believe the elderly man died of either dehydration or hypothermia.
It was in Sydney (Bondi Junction). A terrible search job.
Also the mass stabbing that happened relatively recently at Bondi Junction where multiple people got killed :(
I don’t live in Sydney but I’m sure as hell staying away from Bondi if I go down there to visit.
not sure what that has to do with the case being discussed? maybe you’re in the wrong forum
[removed]
We ask all our users to always stay respectful and civil when commenting.
Direct insults will always be removed.
"Pointless chaff" is at Moderator's discretion and includes (but is not limited to):
That suburb is cursed.
[deleted]
Last Sunday, Australia had our first mass shooting in decades. It happened at Bondi Beach. 15 people were killed. Last year, a knife wielding man went on a rampage at Bondi Junction Shopping Centre injuring people and killing 2 (I think) people.
Killed six (not including perpetrator) and injured 12.
Oh my goodness. I forgot how bad it was ☹️ thank you for the correction
*15 Jewish people celebrating Hanukkah were killed.
*14. One man killed was a retired cop who took up photography and was just there to photograph the events. But fine, a terrorist attack against the Jewish community I was just giving general info to someone from another country. I also didn’t give specifics on the knife attack and how he targeted women.
Jesus Christ. I worked in a mall and we had underground tunnels. Our shop had a lot of big ticket items so our storage area was around a few corners instead of under-ish the shop. Easy for anyone to get lost let alone a confused elderly person. Wow.
I can’t remember the names but there was a woman who had dementia that was abandoned by airport staff and disappeared as well
This story was the first thing I thought of. So incredibly sad.
Seriously, this is heartbreaking esp since it seems he was a really nice guy who was loving and had a lot of ppl who cared about him.
There was also a case here in Brisbane, Australia a couple of years ago, where an elderly man had caught a bus to a destination no-one knew any reason for him to travel to. He got off at a Busway station (dedicated bus rapid transit system) which was immediately adjacent to a Busway tunnel. CCTV showed he turned the wrong way into the tunnel rather than using the exit. There are no footpaths and pedestrians are prohibited from the tunnel. As far as I know he is still missing.
I came here to say the exact same thing.
I'm reminded of a case where an elderly woman with dementia was separated from her husband during a layover (he was in a wheelchair being pushed by a staff member, who apparently didn't speak much English and wasn't briefed that the woman was prone to wandering), vanished from the airport and was found years later miles away having been murdered. I cannot recall her name, but her case was covered on The Trail Went Cold.
i believe you are referring to Marjorie Dabney
Yes, that’s her! It’s sad that her case seems to have gone overlooked for so long.
Such a strange case.
My best guess is that someone picked her up and was hoping to rob her (there's a stereotype that elderly people always carry cash on them due to distrusting banks) but became enraged when she had nothing of value on her and/or the fact she may not have necessarily been coherent after wandering for some time.
Wow this is awful, l really hope they find him or at least find out what happened to him
So sad and omg they found other elderly people that also disappeared the same way?? Very strange…
Not that they left the airport, but that they'd been kicked out of taxi's without enough money to pay.
That’s still strange to me! I live in a major city, and the idea that there’s clusters of elderly homeless people due to being abandoned by taxis is just wild!
This is beyond bizarre
This is so sad. Just do your fing job airport.
The airport never should have offered to babysit this old man. You can blame the airport, but his family is every bit as much to blame.
I don't understand why the airport couldn't tell the family his plane had in fact landed. That alone puts more blame on the airport. The family could only operate on the information the airport was willing to give them.
Maybe they shouldn't have like...offered then? If they had no intention of doing their fucking job? They even said it would be no extra cost, so what was the point? There was nothing to gain from offering then just not doing it. That makes it not only their fault, but especially fucking cruel.
Every airport on earth has this option. As a disabled person, I know this. You call ahead and request someone who can escort you. They often use the carts and you can literally go to any airport on the planet and observe this taking place, and yes, Ive never been charged extra. There are even special colour coded lanyards people can wear to signal to airport staff that they need extra assistance. This is incredibly common and standard practice and every airport.
That doesn't make sense to me, either, to the point that I am not convinced that they said that. I can fully understand them not wanting to give away information on the man, but usually flight information like that is available. But the post also says stuff like, "they wouldnt even let them look at CCTV" and like, yeah, obviously not. Or "they wouldnt even let them search around" because, again, obviously not. It just comes off unreliable to me.
But I've also never flown in South America and I imagine they do things very differently than we do here. But I don't just assume the narrator here is 100% accurate on everything they're saying.
I’ve flown to and from this airport dozens of times, and the workers are absolutely awful. Not just unhelpful, they truly seem to be determined to make everything more difficult. I’ve never experienced anything like it anywhere else. I find this story completely believable.
As far as the viewing of CCTV goes, and accessing certain areas of the airport, I agree with you - they’d never be allowed to in the UK, so I’m not sure why that’s seen as unreasonable or obstructive by OP. Although I can understand their frustration when the airport seemed uninterested in helping them find him, there are good reasons why the general public can’t view this footage or wander around as they please.
BREAKING NEWS: PEOPLE SUCK (even you)
This is a common thing US airports offer, for elderly and children traveling alone.
It's a service they offer, wtf
Do you work there mate?
[removed]
Yes because special assistance is there for exactly that...
[removed]
[removed]
It's a 4 hour hour flight. It's not that long. Peru and Chile are right next to each other. Flights within the US are just as long or more.
I personally would not let an elderly man travel alone since even to me, a latinoamerican millennial, airports are confusing as we really didn't grow up with them. Airports and flying used to be seen as rich people thing, and only recently began to be more affordable. So I wouldn't trust an elderly person without a phone alone, navigating an airport.
But that doesn't mean the fault lies with the family when the airport themselves told them they could assist the elderly person and didnt. Can we focus on the ones to blame aka the airport? Not the family.
It isn't really about the length of the flight, though.
That is just too much for a senile old man. Yes, we all know they said they'd have someone help them. But I would never put my grandfather or small child on a plane alone and I won't defend others doing it. This was clearly too much for this man and people are still trying to shift blame away from him and his family.
I wouldn't either. No one would let me go alone either as in my country flying isn't a common way of transport and im not old or a kid.
But, instead of blaming the family, why aren't you focusing on the professionals who HAD to take care of that man and didn't? You are the one shifting the blame to the family. Sure, if they didn't leave him alone, he wouldn't have been missing. But the airport supposedly provided a service but did not fulfill it. How is the family MORE to blame than the airport who couldn't even tell the family the flight arrived?
I agree. I hate to criticize them because I'm sure they're devastated but this guy clearly wasn't capable of operating on his own in an unfamiliar, busy area.
Hence the need for airport staff to provide him with assistance, as per the service that airports are supposed to provide to passengers who require assistance and are travelling unaccompanied. Not hard.
Nope. No way I'd trust a stranger with my relatives life in their hands. Irresponsible.
Seems so preventable.
[removed]
No one’s assuming that. They offer the service and accept payment for it! This write up says there was no charge but there was. We will all be old one day. We were all young once. We should be able to trust the people we pay to do what they say they will do.
I think it is mentioned by OP that supposedly Fermín refused further assistance after customs. I am sure they considered the job done( if it’s true). Also, at first it’s mentioned that he was “as sharp as ever” but the relatives using cards with their phone numbers makes me think otherwise. Overall it seemed a bad idea to send him on his own but it is impossible to predict he would walk out alone and that the airport and cops were so effing unhelpful.
However, if they've agreed to accompany an elderly passenger or a child they should not take said passenger's word for it that they don't need them any more. The job ends when they deliver them into the arms of their awaiting family. Had it been a 9 year old, would they take his word for it that he could manage by himself now?
If what they say is true it sounds like Fermin became a bit belligerent with the staff member. Remember this guy went for long walks alone and was independent. He probably didn't like being confined to a wheelchair and told what to do. It still doesn't excuse the staff member of their duty of care.
Say what? A young child can’t legally make their own decisions and in loco parentis comes into play. Elderly adults and adults with poor decision-making skills are allowed to make their own decisions as long as they haven’t been deemed legally incompetent. Just look at all the incredibly stupid people out there who are still allowed to vote. Fermin hasn’t had his decisionmaking rights legally taken away. If he said he didn’t want assistance anymore and walked away, it would be assault if the airport assistant tried to restrain him or forcibly detain him.
Yes I can't imagine what they were thinking. Seems they completely trusted the airport but if it were my relative in that kinda condition, I wouldn't trust them enough.
In the 90s as a 5-8 yo I was regularly send off alone internationally on flights and even 18h long night busses. Looking back it's insane. Nobody at my side or overlooking what I was doing. I had a dog tag and was supposed to wait in my seat till staff told me to exit. I was a very shy and rule following child, but all it would have taken is another adult to tell me to go with him.
And the whole article reminds me how I also locked myself in a cinema backroom alone with auto locking doors behind me because I was looking for a bathroom and nobody was able to hear me. Only by coincident did a fellow movie goes hear me cry like two hours later and open it from outside.
To this day I can't understand why one would design a publicly accessible door that way.
That is their job its called special assistance every airport has it! You talk so boldly like you wont one day have mobility issues or otherwise and need help yourself
I can assure you, when I get to that point I will not be flying alone. It's indefensible to put a senile old man on a flight alone.
It doesn't sound like he was "as sharp as ever" if he needed to wear a lanyard with relatives' contact info on it and needed an assistant to navigate an airport. It seems pretty clear he was suffering from dementia, whether or not that was reflected in his medical records.
It does seem like he wasn't as mentally sharp as family say. He would have known the family were meeting him off the plane. He would have known he has their phone numbers on his credentials the daughter made and yet he didn't ask one person to use those phone numbers to call them to see if they were meeting him or should he make his own way home. While he sounds like an independent and physically capable man, I'm wondering was there some issue. And gettting the airport assistance. If he was physically and mentally sharp why organise assistance?
I mean the lanyard just seems like a low tech version of the Life Alert "I've fallen and I can't get up" necklace. That wasn't just meant for dementia patients, it was meant to provide assistance in case of accident or injury
I understand that, but in that case we would all wear one. Unless he's knocked out and cant speak and recite his name or their phone numbers, its only going to be helpful in some very rare circumstances. My point is I suppose that they felt he was vulnerable enough to worry about his going on his long walks. You dont put those life alert necklaces on anyone
I wonder where he thought he was and where he thought he was going, given that he went outside the airport to catch a bus (it seems).
It looks very much as though dementia was outright denied, not just played down, by his family. Unfortunately they made mistake after mistake - allowing him to travel on his own, not giving him a mobile phone, agreeing where to meet when his ability to understand or remember that was doubtful.
(Our family had to deal with a neighbour's relative with dementia after the neighbours washed their hands of them. It was horrendous - we needed eyes in the backs of our heads).
People with mild or very early dementia can sometimes be perfectly fine in familiar places with no noticeable cognitive issues, but if you take them someplace unfamiliar, they suddenly lose abilities. This is probably because an unfamiliar place takes such a larger cognitive load to process the environment, and they just have none to spare.
I've seen people able to walk normal when at home or at a store they like, but you take them somewhere new and they suddenly can't even walk straight. Or people who suddenly get speech issues/stutters when in a new place.
The family may not have been aware of the extent of his deficits if they mainly interacted with him at home.
It breaks my heart, but that was my first thought, as well. Family members can be deeply in denial about the physical and mental decline of their loved ones.
My father passed over a year ago. In the months leading to a fall that would start the downward path to his passing, I had to beg and plead with my older brother to get my parents professional elder care and assistance. It was this fall necessitating a 10+ day hospital stay and 3 weeks in rehab when he took the situation seriously. Aside from signs of impairment that were painfully obvious to me (cognitive issues beyond simple forgetfulness, struggles to navigate stairs in their home despite going on daily walks around the neighborhood, etc), I had neighbors and friends of my parents reaching out with their own concerns ("Your father should NOT be driving" and "I'm worried he's going to write a blank check to a total stranger.") Meanwhile, my brother said he simply did not agree that my folks were not fit to live on their own.
TL;DR: He loved my parents, but my brother was alarmingly off-base when it came to my elderly parents until it was too late.
(Edit: a few words)
Being mentally sound doesn't make the elderly immune to fall damage if they trip over at some point during a multi-hour walk, they can still get injured and need assistance.
But needing a personal assistant in the airport to not get lost? The daughter being so stressed out at the concept of him traveling alone? I think it's really clear he had some cognitive issues.
Not really. I would be just as stressed if my grandma with 0 cognitive issues and who walks kms by herself had to travel alone because elderly people don't know about technology. My grandma never stepped foot in an airport because all travel she did was via bus (yes to other countries). I myself was lost in an airport because it's just not a common thing to travel via airplane because it's expensive and wasn't really common before now.
Definitely.
Such a sad case. That airline deserves to be sued and punished. Outrageous how they got away with that conduct
I know they said he was active and had a good mind still etc. but at 85… suffering from stress and fatigue it would be easy to become confused and lost. I think he left the airport and became disoriented which led to him probably passing and it was just a case of him never being identified. The whole thing just sounds like terrible errors by lazy people from start to finish. Heartbreaking for the family. No family should have gone through such incompetence
It says this in the beginning but then everything afterwards seems to describe someone that absolutely has soke sort of age related degeneration.
The fact that he needed a lanyard with 2 relatives phone numbers in case he went for a long walk
I thought the same. A lot of this story is the account of relatives so I’d have that in mind.
I mean, if he didn't have a phone and went on long walks, that's a great idea. If he fell or had some kind of medical emergency, that would be extremely helpful. My mother recently fell in a parking lot, and it took all day for someone to contact me. She was quite coherent, but hospital staff wouldn't let her get into her purse to get her cell phone.
Good point user ProneToAnalFissures
LOL
That could've been in case of accident or injury not necessarily bc he wasn't sharp
Love your username BTW
Yeah, this is one of my biggest grievances with all the writeups of these. They all want to downplay all the obvious things that led to the disappearance to make it seem more mysterious.
I read a true story from France: an elderly, confused man got lost in the hospital where he was being treated. He reached a section under renovation that was closed to the public and supposedly sealed off with locks. They searched everywhere for weeks. Finally, when they reopened the renovation area to resume work, they found the old man's skeleton. Yet another case of human error and bad research. 😥😥
I’m a bit confused by this part. Does it mean there were other missing elderly individuals coming from the airport? Like there is a pattern?
No, it means that taxi drivers picked up confused elderly people and drove them somewhere, realized they couldn't pay and then dumped them off.
People with dementia are prone to wander especially when they aren't aware of present reality. They may think they need to go to a workplace they retired from 20 years ago or to their childhood home, but they may be far away from the place they think they need to go.
A taxi sees a person needing a ride and doesn't realize it's someone with dementia. Then they drive off with them. Once they figure it out, they kick them out and that person can't find home and won't be looked for at the random places they're dropped.
Whats sick is I understand the taxi driver's thought process. They need to be paid, its work, and they are wasting time.
But it saddens me that this is the case, humanity is stripped out of these situations, the least they could have done was drive them back or somewhere like a police station.
But again I understand why they won't do this and not everyone would go out of their way to help a stranger, elderly or no.
and thats.. fucking sad you know?
At least drop them at a police or fire station, ffs
I would guess it just means older people getting confused/lost while alone.
I’m more surprised it’s just assumed a taxi driver would dump an old, confused man out of his cab in the middle of a huge city. Even just from a pragmatic angle, if you are driving a confused person who can’t pay, wouldn’t it make more sense to drive them to their destination and get a family member there to pay you?
Or that there are that many callous taxi drivers. Or driver that don't understand that elderly people can be confused and they are not being scammed. Drop them at a church, a hospital, a police station, not just kick someone out.
They don't know the destination. If the person has dementia he thinks he's going somewhere he used to go 50 years ago or something.
You would think the driver would at least take the passenger to a police station or similar and file a report for 'theft of service.' That way the driver is covered for possibly receiving what they are owed by the family when they come to get their relative, and the passenger is left somewhere relatively safe (I realize the word 'relatively' is doing a lot of heavy lifting where Latin and South American governments are concerned) with people who can figure out who they are, where they belong, and contact their family to come get them?
Or to a police station?
How sad. If they were upfront and honest from the beginning his family likely would have found him. Just tragic and infuriating
I also wonder how difficult the staff were. This is the families POV. Now if my elderly mother who doesnt have a phone seemed delayed coming through to arrivals I dont know who I would go to, but id try security, the firm that offers assistance and the airline, but they'd be at departures. Im honestly not sure how quickly they could do anything. A tannoy announcement maybe, I mean how to track down 1 passenger must be difficult. Of course the family cant just search any area of the airport, any airport and that the family wanted to know of the flight had landed, could that not be seen from the information board? So i think yes the assistance company is at fault but i cant see airports jumping into action IMMEDIATELY for anyone who thinks their relative is delayed or that they missed at arrivals.
"had no cell phone of his own"... I know a lot of elderly people are against cell phones, but this is EXACTLY why they need one! And why children also need one, which I've seen older people comment negatively about on social media as well. Even if they don't use it, the location features can help ping it and even if they dropped it somewhere it would at least show where they were headed or the general area they were in at one point. It's so crazy to me how many elderly people are so anti-cell phone and anti-technology. I get that not everything is great about new technology, but there are a lot of beneficial things. Nobody is forcing them to use it, but PLEASE carry it with you at least in case of an emergency.
My mother was one who NEVER charged her phone or brought it with her when she went out, and I would get so frustrated. She really bore down on not using technology as some kind of an identity thing (this isn't for people like me, I'm not good at this.) But nobody was asking her to revolve her life around it, we just wanted her to have a way to contact help in a pinch!
She was the same way about Netflix, my brother and I would show her how to use it and she'd say it was too hard and insist she could only use old school cable tv. You do not need a Ph.D. to use Netflix, it's pretty much just click here. She wasn't a dumb person and was fully capable of learning new things until the end of her life - when she wanted to learn them. She just denied herself shows she liked in order to make a point about technology.
Seriously, this was harder to cope with than any temper tantrum my kids threw as toddlers. I'm not young myself anymore, and can have some sympathy for some of this feeling as we enter the AI era and I feel a little bit behind the curve. I get it. But the answer is not to stomp our feet and refuse to use legitimately helpful tools.
Do you think an AirTag will be useful in this situation? I never used one myself.
Edit: I realized that airtags only came out a few years ago and this is an old case, my bad.
My grandma has dementia and we have a few Airtags hidden in her purse, wallet, coats she likes to wear out when she wanders. They're very helpful but it often feels dehumanising that we've basically had to chip her. If she was slightly more cognisant she'd be sooo mad about it too.
Hide them under the insoles of her shoes. She won’t even notice it is there.
I've heard the name but don't know much about that, I'm sure it would help if it keeps track of someone.
Oh I was in that airport 3 times last month! I don't like it. I found it kind of confusing and people were generally unhelpful.
True. Not a nice airport but also not too confusing. Just a bit old and unwelcoming and not really constructed for orientation/convenience. Santiago needs a new one.
They kept changing the gates and not announcing it.
The man was very obviously demented. The family initially didn’t want him traveling alone. They made him a lanyard to wear around his neck with contact information for relatives.
They only relented in allowing him to travel alone after being reassured that he would be provided with assistance by the airline when getting off the plane and going through customs.
If he was fit of mind and able bodied there would have been no initial concern for wanting him to be attended through the airport.
Him being demented, no matter how the family may want to down play it very likely resulted in him wandering off on his own and with not enough money to even take a cab or buy food, he probably wandered aimlessly until he eventually succumbed to the elements.
It’s very sad that his body has never been found.
The airline can only do so much to supervise a passenger. They can’t prevent the passenger from leaving the area or refusing assistance.
I feel for the family who were falsely reassured by the airline into second guessing their initial judgement that he should not travel alone.
Someone in the family should have changed their flight to fly home with the father if there was concern that he wouldn’t know how to make it through customs or baggage claim on his own.
Hindsight is always 20/20, but the family isn’t being forthcoming on the man’s very obvious dementia.
Airport seems guilty to me
Here’s a similar story involving an elderly woman named Victoria Kong. She walked right past her daughter at baggage claim. She is seen on CCTV footage wandering around without appearing in distress. She was eventually found 200 ft outside of the airport property and just off a popular walking trail. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/family-of-victoria-kong-mourns-death-of-grandmother-who-wandered-from-airport/2013/05/08/e4f3fc12-b72c-11e2-b94c-b684dda07add_story.html
Please stop posting links to articles that are paywalled.
You can use archive.is to bypass this: https://archive.is/Wom6E or if you use Firefox in desktop, there's a thing in your search bar called "Toggle reader view".
Edit: The reader view doesn't work in this newspaper. But the archive.is link does work!
Or use the Brave browser, which has a paywall-bypassing filter as an inbuilt option (!!)
Settings > Brave Shields and Privacy > Content Filtering > Bypass Paywalls Clean Filter (on Android).
(The filter can be installed as an extension in other browsers if you download it from the Russian equivalent of GitHub then do some technical trickery, so Brave are appreciated here for bypassing that).
Thank you for making a suggestion but I can’t get that to load at all. Says server is offline?
ummm I don't know, but it works for me. Try writing archive.is in your browser, and then copy and paste the newspaper link, click search, and the article should appear without paywall.
Edit: Or try this one
https://web.archive.org/web/20231222220134/https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/family-of-victoria-kong-mourns-death-of-grandmother-who-wandered-from-airport/2013/05/08/e4f3fc12-b72c-11e2-b94c-b684dda07add_story.html
Here you go 😊
***Victoria Kong, 83, had made the trip to Barbados and back at least 10 times before, but when she walked off American Airlines Flight 1094 last Friday at Reagan National Airport, her mind apparently was fogged by dementia-like confusion. The Gaithersburg woman strode past the gate at 4 p.m., down an escalator and to the baggage claim area, where Anderson eagerly waited with hair freshly styled for the reunion. She had bought a new cardigan to keep her mother warm. But Kong didn’t stop. She walked through baggage claim while Anderson was faced in a different direction. By 4:12 p.m., the family said, surveillance video showed Kong leaving through a door, never to return. The brush was one of an improbable series of missed connections and miscommunications that would set off a massive search for the woman and ultimately lead to her death, huddled in a heavily wooded area just north of the airport in chilly weather.
“I’m devastated,” Anderson said. “I’m just torn to pieces by the stupidity. It could have been avoided. The way she died, no one deserves to die like that.” Kong’s family said she had been experiencing memory loss and confusion since her husband died last year but had never wandered off before and seemed to be sharp the morning of her flight. Kong had been in Barbados for two months visiting two of her children. Family said Kong’s son dropped her off at the airport in Barbados for the 7:15 a.m. flight Friday. “My grandmother repeated back my uncle’s cellphone number to him at the airport,” said Alexandria Anderson, Kong’s granddaughter. “She said she would be fine.” And she was, at first. Kong’s family had arranged for wheelchair service with American Airlines, and an agent helped Kong get to her flight. Relatives said they had requested American take Kong directly to and from her seat, but the airline said the family requested only service to the gate — a detail that would later prove tragic. The first leg of Kong’s journey was uneventful. Anderson said her mother landed in Miami and then boarded Flight 1094 to National with the help of another American Airlines agent. Surveillance footage showed that she was one of the first passengers to deplane at 4 p.m.
Family members said Kong walked past an American Airlines agent sent to escort her by wheelchair to baggage claim. The agent had a small electronic sign with Kong’s name on it, but the family surmises Kong didn’t see it or was confused about who was picking her up. Downstairs, Joy Anderson had no idea what was going on. She was ecstatic to be getting her mother back. The family had renovated Kong’s room and outfitted her shower with handrails because she was having trouble moving around. A brunch reservation had been made for Mother’s Day. Family members had also planned to take her to a doctor to be evaluated for her cognitive problems, which they worried were quickly growing worse. Relatives described Kong as generous and religious. They said she had been orphaned as a child in Guyana and had helped raise some of her siblings. She was a teacher there before moving to the United States, where she became a citizen. She loved to cook. Outside the airport, Kong showed up on surveillance video a handful of times. Airport authorities said she is seen getting out of a taxi, perhaps having gotten in just before off camera. She is seen talking with people and sitting calmly on a bench. Authorities said that she was not visibly in distress or disoriented. Meanwhile, Anderson waited inside. Luggage from Flight 1094 snaked around the carousel, and passengers who had requested wheelchair service began to arrive. Anderson grew concerned. Anderson said that she stopped in an American Airlines office. An agent said that her mother was still at the gate, so she waited some more, she said. She visited a second American office and had her mother paged. She inquired at a ticketing counter. Anderson said that she was falsely told at one point that an agent was with her mother in a bathroom. She called an 800 number for American. “Please help me find my mom,” Anderson said she pleaded. “I’m screaming mad right now.” American Airlines officials said that they never told Anderson her mother was in their custody. In a statement Wednesday, the airline said that it responded with “appropriate care and concern to Ms. Kong’s family.” By 6 p.m., Anderson went to airport police. In an interview Wednesday, Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority Police Chief Stephen L. Holl said that officers began looking at surveillance tapes and searching the terminals, including the baggage claim area and restrooms. It would be the start of a three-day, coordinated search by six agencies that employed a helicopter, a boat, volunteers and tracking dogs. By 4:30 a.m. Saturday, Anderson said, authorities discovered a key clue. A surveillance camera on the outer edge of the airport showed Kong heading north on the Mount Vernon Trail. Holl said searchers swept areas north and south of the airport. On Sunday, tracking dogs, who had sniffed Kong’s luggage, tracked her scent to part of Roosevelt Island, more than four miles north of the airport. The dogs, Holl said, “found a strong presence of her odor” at the island. A SWAT team combed part of the marshy 88-acre island, a boat plied the water and the helicopter used an infrared sensor to scan for a warm body. On Monday, two teams searched the island while another worked its way back toward the airport. At about 2 p.m., rescuers found Kong’s body in a grove of trees just north of the airport, near Gravelly Point. The area where she was found is just off the walking path where it drops off at a steep angle into an area of growth and leaves. It is about 200 yards from the airport property. “If she was lying down in an area of heavy leaves or growth, hundreds of people could have passed by and didn’t see her,” Holl said. Family members said that Kong was in the long flower-print dress she wore on the flight. She had her purse, and there were no signs of foul play. U.S. Park Police are waiting for an official cause of death, but relatives said that it appears Kong died of exposure. Susan Kudla Finn, president of the Alzheimer’s Association’s National Capital Area Chapter, said air travel can be especially difficult for those with dementia. “This disease is dynamic,” Finn said. “What you see today is not necessarily what you see tomorrow. When you add a new environment, that can be very stressful.” She recommended that people have an elderly relative with symptoms be evaluated by a doctor before travel. If there are concerns about the person’s ability to navigate a trip, Finn recommended having him or her go with a companion. The Alzheimer's Association has a help line that can offer travel tips, and many airlines have programs to help elderly travelers. Kong’s family is now planning her funeral. On Wednesday, Alexandria Anderson said she still had the cardigan that Kong was to receive when she got off the plane. “We only anticipated she would be a little slower but would still be Grandma,” Anderson said***
If you wanna read it just pay
Why would he walk out instead of going to his family waiting for him at the gate, if not due to cognitive decline?
I can't believe the family let him fly by himself at 85. He also should've had the most basic phone at the very least.
I hadn’t thought about it much but we lost some safety for children and elderly travelers when they started banning people from meeting flights at the gate.
This case and the other one mentioned with the woman at National would not have happened if family could’ve waited where the flight deboarded.
(oops, I just read this flight involved immigration and customs which would not have been as straightforward)
Everyone here wants to blame the airport, but theres no way I'd let my 4 year old or my 94 year old grandma fly alone. It's completely irresponsible AND has the potential to really inconvenience a lot of people.
Considering they were the ones who pushed them into reluctantly getting the ticket under the explicit pretence that he would have an assistant (Which is something that this airline has on hand anyway for vulnurable passengers for situations like these, like an actual career with the Airline, not something that is just pushed onto a random flight attendent) and then did everything in their power to make looking for him as difficult as possible and even outright telling a false story that wasn't backed up by the CCTV footage...Yes, everyone does want to blame them, reasonably so
Cause if you read and translate the comments on all the YouTube videos covering this case, you'll see that all of them are doing the same.
Of course, they assumed he'd be cared for because they have people whose job it is to literally do that, and they promised that he would be in a bid to get an extra ticket, only to have that guy not do his job and then for the staff to blatantly lie through their teeth about it.
Sure, maybe you can blame the family for letting him fly on his own, but you seem to be brushing aside the airport and airline's blatant negligence.
There is only so much the airline can do. They can’t restrain the guy or force him to sit in a wheelchair if he says he doesn’t want the assistance.
My father has cognitive decline and no way would I ever trust airline employees to keep him safe, no matter how much they pushed us into getting the ticket. The family absolutely has responsibility in this situation. Someone should have changed their flight to be with him so he didn’t fly alone.
I'm not saying they don't have responsibility. Not anymore anyway, now that I've seen all the perspectives in the comments that weren't appearing when I actually researched this case.
But there's still negligence that occurred on the staff's part as well, and my argument was that the original comment seemed to just be brushing aside the fault they also have.
But what if he refused help beyond customs as it says in the write up? I mean I personally woukd be very attentive to an okder person if he seems even a little out of it, but it doesn’t appear to be the case. Also (I may be super mistaken) but I think the assistance is a service from the airport that maybe the airline petitioned? I always see at airports that the wheelchair and uniforms have airport branding.
He apperently had contacts for the family on him and the family was already in the airport. That is just straight negligence.
One has to wonder if he had simply walked out the door he was first going toward before turning back around if he would have walked right into his waiting family's arms?
Especially if he was not used to it. My mother, terrified of flying flies once a decade and no way could she manage by herself. Airports are so stressful for those in the best of conditions
How many times are you going to comment this? We get it - you blame the family and think old people shouldn't fly.
Thank you. It’s crazy how many times they’ve commented on this thread
[removed]
[removed]
[removed]
Literally! Seems awfully defensive and protective over the airport and all the poor “inconvenienced” staff
Until people stop arguing for why they should be allowed to put their gran-gran on cross country flights alone.
I'm sure your spamming comments will really stop people from using a service the airline offers.
I agree 100%. There comes a time in a person’s life where you can no longer engage in certain activities, and it is not the world’s responsibility to coddle you if you stubbornly refuse to admit this.
To be fair, one of the most common symptoms of dementia is anosognosia, which causes sufferers to lack the insight needed to recognize their deficits. A lot of the time it's not a stubborn choice, but rather a symptom of the actual brain damage caused by the disease.
There are so many problems with this story. He obviously showed cognitive decline, otherwise there wouldn't be a need for the lanyard.
His daughter had no intention of taking him or she would have booked him a seat on her flight, and not at the last minute after he found out. If her flight was full on the return why didn't she switch her ticket to his flight?
For the passengers safety airline employees are not allowed to give out information. They are not allowed to let anyone that leaves a sterile area back in. They are also not adult babysitters. The employees in this case were following protocol. He should have never flown alone.
"They are also not adult babysitters"
That part is incorrect, that airline does in fact have special employee's whose job it is to literally do just that.
That is why they are so angry with the airline and airport
You said ‘they went to ask the airport staff, and they were quite unhelpful. They would restrict the family from entering certain areas to look for him’ - I’d be interested to know why you think the family should have been permitted to go wherever they chose in order to search for the missing person. Have you considered that the airport staff had no way of knowing if this was factually true - if it hadn’t been the case and the staff had allowed them in these places, they would have been in a heap of trouble. Same goes for watching the CCTV, which you present as an entirely reasonable expectation.
I mean, I think its reasonable for the officer who accompanied them to want to be allowed to see the footage. But I also can't find anything on if he was police or just secruity so I didn't want to make any assumptions about how much authority he'd really have
All I'm doing, is writing down the information I come across, sometimes that info is framed in a certain way and then other perspectives come out when the write-ups are made public which is partly why I publish them
If you read the comments on any video covering this case, even news broadcasts you will see zero blame sent the family's way which is another reason I didn't think I was framing anything incorrectly, because I didn't see these viewpoints shared anywhere else until after I published this write-up. Just as there are comments in this write-up by people with experiance with this airport talking about how awful the staff are jsut in general.
I have no such experience and am writing this case through a language barrier, needing online translators. Hence the disclaimer. Nothing I wrote in the write-up is my personal opinion, just what I've come across and seen watching the only three youtube videos on this case and reading the three articles on it
I’m just curious then as to why you feel the need to frame the information in any type of way. The factual information is necessary - the editorial comments attempting to guide and steer readers in a particular direction are not needed.
You wrote ‘the airport staff were initially resistant and said they couldn't show them the footage because it was time for the staff's shift change. Of course, his family didn't consider that to be a valid excuse and forced the issue until the airport staff finally relented.’
It’s unclear why you said ‘of course’ the family didn’t consider that a valid excuse, as though they obviously should have been able to view it. It could have been a perfectly valid reason, although they may not have been happy about it - they may not have had the authority to show this footage, and may have been waiting for advice or the decision of a superior. In many countries showing the footage to unauthorised persons is a criminal offense, as too would be allowing them access to specific areas of the airport. This doesn’t seem to be something you consider when you ‘frame’ the family’s desires as indisputably valid. They weren’t. These procedures and processes are in place for a reason. It isn’t ’of course’ obvious that this man’s sad disappearance and his family’s desires should mean all those safety issues and legal protocols are ignored.
The family accuses a company that provides assistance services, which they had hired to accompany him during the procedures, transporting him in a wheelchair, of leaving him alone before meeting him. The quote is from a link you shared.
Airlines pay contractors for wheelchair assistance as a courtesy. It's not the same service as the paid unaccompanied minor service, which requires the child to stay with someone until they are signed off to the adult on the reservation.
He told the employee he didn't need assistance. The worker must have been concerned because he was dropped off at the police station, so they did their duty. The agent works for tips, they can't be expected to watch an adult for four hours.
So he had dementia? And was left alone? Unfortunately that's a tale as old as time. If his family had put cards with phone numbers around his neck it's because they already knew of his condition, so why the heck would they let him travel alone?
This story is really heartbreaking
Life is sometimes really stranger than fiction
He was an 85 year old man experiencing significant cognitive decline. This is not strange at all.
In fact most missing person searches I see in my country that I see tends to involve “old person with known or not known cognitive decline decides to take some fresh air” cases (they still manage to get found alive compared to “he decided to take a swim in a dam lake/river/ entered sea at night” cases; another one I commonly see which they always get recovered as deceased.)
That is so sad. He arrived but staff did not hold him. They were so unhelpful. That poor family. Did everything they could.
Content not available in my region please
Which link says that? Let me help you.
Oh wait there's videos at the bottom thats fine
The imgur weren't loading
All of them