If the 'rents aren't US citizens, I certainly hope that baby isn't considered one. Have to look this one up, haven't run across this before.
If it's not on the ground..it isn't U.S. soil...just airspace. If they try to have this as a trend...good luck to them. How nice that a doc just for situations like this was on-board for this test run.
Don't give it a second thought, its a US plane and that will be enough for some socialist Federal judge to grant the kid a Social Security Number and give his parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and future childhood friends automatic access to all US social benefits.
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7 FAM 1116.1-3 Airspace
(TL:CON-64; 11-30-95)
a. Airspace above the land territory and internal waters is held to be part of the United States (Art. 1(1), 1958 Geneva Convention on the Territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone, 15 U.S.T. 1606, TIAS 5639). Gordon and Rosenfeld, in Immigration Law and Procedure, Volume 3, Nationality (New York: Matthew Bender, 1986), commenting on the applicability of the 14th Amendment to vessels and planes, states:-----------..The rules applicable to vessels obviously apply equally to airplanes. Thus a child born on a plane in the United States, or flying over its territory, would acquire United States citizenship at birth.b. Cases of persons born on planes in airspace outside the U.S. coastal borders but within the U.S. territorial sea should be submitted to the Department (CA/OCS) for adjudication.
But as Al Gore once said: "There is no controlling legal authority." That is an opinion of a lawyer, not settled case law and not the result of a court decision.
In my Coast Guard days, a young Ensign told me a story of a cruise that involved rescuing some Hatians. She said the Hatians were berthed on deck because there were so many of them. The pregnant ones were having sex, reason being the act could induce labor and their child would be born on U.S. property, thereby becoming a U.S. citizen.
I never checked this story out, but this is what she told me. I could hardly imagine less romantic conditions.