An airline crew and plane passengers banded together to help a retired couple track down a lost passport, preventing their trip from turning into a nightmare, in a now-viral moment caught on camera.
Kam and Tim Boles had planned for months to embark on a cruise that started from South Africa.
"We were so excited to start this trip and so pumped up to do it," Kam Boles told ABC News.
But when the Boles boarded their final Delta Air Lines flight from Atlanta to Cape Town, they realized they were missing one of their passports.
"And I said [to Tim Boles], 'Did you pick up your passport?' Kim Boles recalled. "He said, 'No, I gave it to you.' And I say, 'Well, I don't have it.'"
The Boles' realization triggered a search that stretched for over 20 minutes and involved both passengers and crew in the plane and even on the plane gangway.
"We were digging through their things," Catherine McCaffrey, a Delta Air Lines flight attendant, told ABC News. "We even had a ramp agent look for the passport, because there was a small little gap between the aircraft and the jetway. It was such a team effort."
The Boles said they started to resign themselves to the idea that they would need to give up and go home, but after they disembarked, the search continued.
"My heart was still in it, and I wanted to bring out the Delta difference and look for it one last time," McCaffrey said.
Finally, McCaffrey said she found the Boles' missing document.
Brent Silkey, a fellow passenger on the flight, captured the triumphant moment in a viral video shared on Instagram.
"We were gonna have to cancel everything and go back home," Kam Boles recalled. "Just as we had resolved ourselves to that fact, we got this 'Wait, wait, don't do anything.' And the gangway person came frantically running out there saying, 'Hold up. They found your passport.'"
Captain Joe Ricciardi, one of four pilots on Boles' flight, told ABC News it was his last flight before retiring and he ultimately decided to make an exception and let the couple return to the plane.
"We've had lots of good acts of kindness at Delta that sort of would always set us apart and made me want to work for them. But this one was above and beyond," Ricciardi said.
The Boles said they're touched by the sheer kindness of everyone involved who helped save their long-awaited trip.
"It was neat that, you know, all the flight attendants were just happy to have you on board -- and the passengers, the passengers that we thought were going to be upset with us were all cheering for us," Tim Boles said.
