Can you imagine? A horse loose during a flight? It happened November 9 on a flight from New York City to Belgium. My guess is that the horse is a VERY expensive show horse that was heading overseas to be shown, or maybe a racehorse, or even a stallion headed for breeding.
Here's the story as ABC news presented it. I sure hope the horse is okay.
A 747 cargo plane heading to Belgium from New York was forced to return to John F. Kennedy International Airport after a horse escaped from its stall, according to the air traffic control audio.
According to the audio clip, which was obtained by You Can See ATC via Live ATC, the horse got loose within 30 minutes of takeoff.
The Boeing 747 was barely at 31,000 feet when a pilot told air traffic control that a horse had escaped from its stall and that they needed to return to JFK on Thursday, according to FlightRadar24.
In the air traffic control audio, a pilot is heard saying, "We are a cargo plane with a live animal, a horse, on board. The horse managed to escape its stall. There's no issue with flying, but we need to go back to New York as we can't resecure the horse."
The flight was forced to make a U-turn off the coast of Boston and dump about 20 tons of fuel over the Atlantic, "10 miles west of Martha's Vinyard," due to the flight's weight, according to the audio.
Amid the fuel dump, the pilot requested a veterinarian to be present at JFK when the plane arrived.
Once landed, when ATC asked if the flight required assistance, "On the ground, negative. On the ramp, yes, we have a horse in problem."
It remains unclear how the horse managed to escape but it remained unrestrained until the plane landed at JFK, according to the audio.
The flight was able to take off a short time later and successfully arrive at Liege Airport on Friday morning, according to FlightRadar24.
Air Atlanta Icelandic, the charter airline operating the flight, did not immediately respond to ABC News' request for comment.
I think your guess of show horse going overseas to compete would probably be the most likely. It could also be a horse that was here to compete going home though that is probably less likely since it would have flown successfully at least one time. It's pretty rare for horses to be exported from the US to foreign countries for breeding purposes outside of racing and in all the years I worked on thoroughbred farms and in the racing industry I couldn't even tell you if Belgium has horse racing off the top of my head and I've never heard of any race horse being exported to Belgium ever. Turkey, South Africa, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Australia, New Zealand, England, France, Germany and all across South America, yes, Belgium, nope. Horses ship internationally in large metal boxes not dissimilar to a horse trailer without wheels except that the horse faces out over the doors rather than loading head first. I've seen thoroughbred yearlings jump over the partition in a Brookledge trailer so it isn't far fetched to say a show horse made it over the front of one of these flying horse boxes. Normally there is a groom with each animal, but in close quarters with a panicked horse it isn't hard to believe they had a tough time getting it under control again. A vet would have been a standard call to not only ensure the animal is safe but to treat injuries it has sustained and judge if it can or cannot continue to travel or to sedate the horse so they can figure all that out. Given that the flight didn't get far the horse probably lost it's mind when the flight took off. That's all conjecture though, I have an idea of how the process works and I've seen the mechanics of it but without more information all I can do is educated guesswork. Hopefully the horse is ok and its owners get it all figured out. AJG
ReplyDeleteThis was so informative - thank you! And I agree, I hope the horse is all tight. Terrifying to think about it. Lynn
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