FORT MYERS, Fla. (NEWSnet/AP) — A 6-year-old boy who departed on a flight for the Christmas holiday to visit his grandmother in southwest Florida was placed on the wrong plane and landed 160 miles away, in Orlando, Florida. 

When the grandmother, Maria Ramos,arrived on Thursday at Southwest Florida International Airport in Fort Myers to greet her grandson, she was told he wasn’t on the Spirit Airlines flight.

The boy was flying for the first time, from Philadelphia.

“I ran inside the plane to the flight attendant and I asked her, ‘Where’s my grandson? He was handed over to you at Philadelphia?’ She said, ‘No, I had no kids with me,’” Ramos  told WINK News.

She then received a call from her grandson from the airport in Orlando, telling her he had landed.

In a statement, Spirit Airlines said the boy was under the care and supervision of an airlines employee the entire time, even though he was incorrectly boarded on a flight to Orlando. When the mistake was discovered, the airlines notified the family, the statement said.

“We take the safety and responsibility of transporting all of our Guests seriously and are conducting an internal investigation,” the statement said. “We apologize to the family for this experience.”

Copyright 2023 NEWSnet and The Associated Press. All rights reserved.