Meir Furman, 80, a double Israeli-Swiss national, left Tel Aviv on Friday for Munich. For reasons that no one has yet been able to explain, he boarded the wrong plane and landed in Vienna. Since he left the airport, no one has seen him. The last image we have of him is that of an older man walking alone through the city on Saturday night.
Furman suffers from memory loss and disorientation. Travel without a mobile phone, cash, or credit card. The Viennese police are actively looking for him.
There's something about this story that sticks with you. How many of us have sent an older relative to the airport alone, or received them after a stopover flight? Large airports can be mazes even for someone young and perfectly oriented. For someone with memory problems, the boarding screens, the doors that change at the last minute, the corridors that look identical... it's easy to see how something like this happens.
It is still being sought. If anyone in or around Vienna has information, the Viennese police take the case.