Plane turns back after horse escapes in cargo hold, is euthanised

The Air Atlanta Icelandic cargo plane, which was en route from New York JFK to Liege, Belgium, turned around shortly after takeoff on November 9 after its pilot became aware of the incident.

The horse, which had partially escaped its stall, had to be euthanised due to its injuries.

The cargo flight had climbed to around 31,000 feet when crew contacted air traffic control in Boston to report the incident and request to turn around.

“We have live animal, horse on board the aeroplane. The horse managed to escape his stall,” one of the pilots says, per a video reconstruction of the incident that was verified by CNN.

“We don’t have a problem flying-wise but … we cannot get the horse back secured.”

Air traffic control approved the pilots’ request to return to JFK airport, as well as to dump 20 tons of fuel into the ocean east of Nantucket, an island 40km from the US mainland, because the plane was too heavy.

The pilot asked for a vet to meet the plane upon landing, because “we have a horse in difficulty”.

How the horse got stuck

The horse was among 15 others being transported to Liege, which is a major import hub for Europe.

Turbulence struck shortly after takeoff, according to John Cuticelli, boss of ARK Import Export Center, which oversees animal quarantine and export at John F. Kennedy International Airport.

The horse became spooked and jumped halfway over the front barrier of its stall. It got stuck, with its front legs on one side of the barrier and its hind legs trapped inside the stall.

Mr Cuticelli said it was the second time he had seen such an incident.

“The horse jumped and managed to get its two front legs over the (front) barrier and then got jammed,” he said.

“It’s only the second time in all the years I’ve been doing this that I’ve ever seen that happen. And we do thousands of horses a year. A very unfortunate event, but that horse was spooked.”

Mr Cuticelli said his team “dispersed veterinary care, animal handlers, medical equipment, horse slings, a horse ambulance, everything necessary to accommodate that horse.”

“We had to take the other horses out to get the equipment in to get the horse out,” he said.

But once the animal could be examined, it was determined that its injuries were too severe to survive and it was euthanised, Mr Cuticelli said.

Horse stalls on planes have slightly shorter front barriers over which the animals can hang their heads. This allows their handlers to replenish feed and have access to the horses’ heads.

However, horses are loaded on the ground into large, dead-bolted shipping containers, which would have made it near-impossible for handlers to have opened the stall door and rescue the horse mid-flight.