An Icelandic Air Atlanta flight was forced to return less than 20 minutes after the cargo hold of a horse on the plane came loose from its storage.
The flight was departing New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport for Belgium when the horse became free and could not be secured in its assigned area.
A reconstruction of the flight path uploaded to YouTube illustrated that the plane had climbed to 31,000 feet over Boston when the pilots contacted air traffic control.
Viewers can hear the pilots ask to return to New York after the crew was unable to get a hold of the horse and asked for a veterinarian to be present after landing.
According to the clip, posted on the channel ‘You can see ATC‘, the flight crew was forced to dump approximately 20 tons of fuel near Martha’s Vineyard as it returned to New York.
An Icelandic Air Atlantic plane was flying from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport to Belgium’s Liège Airport when the horse broke free and started running into the plane
Viewers hear the pilots ask for permission to return to New York after the crew could not get the horse safely and that a vet would be present after landing to contain the rogue animal (stock image)
The pilots said, ‘We are a cargo plane with a living animal, a horse, on board. The horse has escaped from its stable.
‘We don’t have a flying problem, but we have to get back, back to New York. We can’t get the horse back safely.’
DailyMail.com has contacted Air Atlanta Icelandic for comment.
Flight radar24 reported that the flight took off again at 6:35 PM and landed successfully in Liège after approximately six hours at 6:49 AM local time on November 10.
The shocked flyboys in the video could be heard shouting over the intercom to the control tower and saying, ‘We are a cargo plane with a live animal, a horse, on board. The horse has escaped from its stable
According to the private YouTube channel, the flight crew was forced to dump approximately 20 tons of fuel near Martha’s Vineyard while returning to New York (stock image)
In early October, an otter and a rat smuggled in a passenger’s hand luggage caused panic after escaping at large on a flight from Bangkok – with the rat brutally biting one of the crew members on the hand.
Shocked passengers noticed a giant albino rat with glittering red eyes as they walked to the bathroom on the Airbus A320 flying to Taiwan.
Confused flight attendants searched the plane and noticed a second wild creature: a foot-long otter under a seat.
Footage showed the otter rolling onto the floor near one of the seats before crew members frantically tried to resolve the situation, while passengers huddled in their seats watching the chaos unfold.
You can see a scared passenger trying to avoid the otter as it moves across the floor. The otter rolls across the carpet before being caught by the cabin crew
The crew is seen tying up a black bag that appears to contain at least one of the animals.
The otter is then shown moving around in a container at Taiwan’s airport before being transported.
Shockingly, a box containing 28 live turtles was also found when police searched the plane upon landing in Taipei after the three-hour and 45-minute budget flight operated by Vietnamese airline Viet Jet.
Officials launched an investigation into how the creatures were smuggled through security checkpoints at Thailand’s notoriously corrupt Suvarnabhumi International Airport.
In another incident earlier this year, a cheeky orange cat managed to flee his seat in search of the comforts of first class. He was picked from the aisle by a nearby attendant, who asked, “Did anyone miss a cat?”
“She doesn’t know how to hold a cat,” one passenger is heard giggling as the flight attendant gingerly leads the escapee back down the aisle
A video taken by a fellow flyer showed a brave flight attendant gingerly leading the snarling cat back down the aisle, warning passengers to “pay attention” as the cat squirmed and hissed in her hands.
Halfway through the cabin, the trapped cat makes one last attempt at freedom, wriggling out of the handler’s arms and fleeing back to the front of the plane.
“Have you lost your cat?” another grinning attendant repeats over the loudspeaker. “She’s running around the plane. We need you to come and claim that.”
The owner eventually identified the resigned cat and returned him to his seat; the escape attempt was foiled.
United Airlines travel guidelines allow pets to travel in the cabin as long as they are in a rigid or soft carrier that fits under the seat in front.
However, the ‘one rule’ is that they always remain in the carrier with the door closed.
It is not known whether an investigation is being conducted into the reason why the horse became loose from the hold.