On a flight from Moscow to Tbilisi Georgia in the late 1970s, non-Russian passengers — only a few back then — were grouped and sat over the wing. I assume it was so we couldn’t see the ground and whatever military or other facilities that we were going to fly over that the Russians didn’t want us to see.

We’d climbed to altitude but there was what was probably a five or six year old girl that was experiencing enough pain that she was crying loudly. She was holding her head so I assume it was an ear problem. Pressure not equalized between the inner and outer ear was possibly the problem.

The mother was trying hard to placate the baby, but the pain or whatever was too severe. The Flight Attendant (Stewardess, back then) came and told the mother forcefully that she must stop the baby from crying. At least that translation seemed consistent with the gruffness of her voice and her body language — I don’t speak Russian.

Over the next few minutes the Flight Attendant returned a couple of times trying to get the mother to calm the child, and finally, forcefully, grabbed the child out of the mothers arms and took her back to the galley. The child’s screaming stopped. And, interestingly, the mother didn’t get up to check on the child for the remainder of the flight.

I don’t know if the Flight Attendant had some magic trick or whether she held something over the child’s mouth. But that was the last we saw of the child until just before landing.

About the Flight Attendant. She absolutely didn’t fit the Western World image of a Flight Attendant. She’d obviously had an accident at some point and was missing her left ear entirely and had a long radius scar from the ear down to her chin. Kind of spooky looking and that went with her demeanor.