Horse Loose on an Airplane

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.

Um... Hello?

This is the sight that greeted me yesterday as I rolled up to the new barn.

 Someone was on the wrong side of the fence. I sat in my car for a few minutes, figuring out a plan to get Two Socks back where she belonged. She is a smart girl; if she suspected that I was going to put her back with the other horses, she'd not let me catch her. I'd have to be careful and not arouse her suspicions.

Luckily, I knew her Achilles heel - peppermints! I grabbled a handful from my trunk and casually walked up to her like I was just going to say hello and visit.

Two Socks accepted the treat, then put her head down for more grazing. I held out another one, her head popped up, and she snarfed that one down.

Walking a few feet away, I held out another peppermint and Two Socks followed me and ate that one, too. Continuing to hold out treats while walking back to the pasture in Pied Piper mode, I lured her through the gate and finally shut it behind her. She was NOT happy with me when she realized that I had caught her, but she was confined and safe again and that was what I cared about.

Abby, who had been following Two Socks and me from the other side of the fence, nickering all the while that SHE wanted some of those peppermints, too, then got her treats and she and I had a nice visit together. 

I phoned Tim to let him know I'd found Two Socks loose and he told me that that was the second time she'd gotten out that day! Apparently Miss Two Socks was at it again. When she was only a few months old, she'd become a little escape artist, and Tim had had to electrify the fence to keep her where she belonged. The electric fence has now been turned back on and the problem is solved. 

Wondering about the drainboard patterns follow up I mentioned? I took a slew of photos yesterday - I have more models with them than I'd realized! That should be tomorrow's blog post topic, so stay 'tooned!

Single Mare Looking for Companionship

I got Amy, my first horse, when I was twelve. At the time, I didn't realize that horses are herd animals and need companionship.

Amy and me when I first got her. Can you see why I cried when I first spied Abby and ended up bringing her home? (I still have that saddle, bridle, and saddle pad in Tim's tackroom.)

The arrow is pointing to Gossip Corner which is across the highway that split our property into two parts. (It's under the telephone poles in this photo.) Amy used to stand down there in that corner of the paddock and whinny at Scoj and Lass, two Quarter Horse mares down the road.

Gossip Corner should have been a big clue, but I was young and inexperienced and almost all of my know-how came from reading books.

One night after we had all gone to bed, a car speeding down the highway lost control and crashed through the fence at Gossip Corner, leaving a large hole behind. (Luckily Amy was not hurt.) The driver sped off leaving us unaware that she now had a way to go visiting.

 Boy howdy, did she ever take the opportunity!  Amy hightailed it down the highway IN THE DARK and soon the sheriff began getting reports of a loose horse on highway 43. Meanwhile, we slumbered on, unaware that my horse was gone.

Amy's jaunt - the top arrow points to our home and the bottom arrow to the place where she was finally rounded up and safe.

Two miles later, she had made it all the way to the edge of town. The sheriff caught her, and someone held her while he began looking for the owner. That meant driving north along the highway and stopping at places that looked like they might own horses.

At 5:00 AM he knocked on our door, shining his light on his badge so we knew it was safe to open the door. A quick check showed that Abby was indeed gone and the sheriff drove my father back to town so he could get her.

Since we did not yet have a trailer, Dad had a long, lonely, and scary walk back home. I'd like to think he got a police escort with lights flashing for safety, but I don't think he did. Amy went into the paddock and Dad repaired the damage from the hit and run driver.

We'd learned our lesson and soon our herd began to grow. But let me tell you, that's the hard way to convince your parents that you need more than one horse!

Round Up!

Tim and I have a joke that every time he travels, something happens with the horses. And honestly, that runs pretty true most of the time. So when he left town ten days ago, he sent me this tongue in cheek text.

Unfortunately, Two Socks was not listening when he had that chat with them. When I arrived for yesterday's barn check, I saw this - was Two Socks in the nursery paddock?

Yep! She sure was! And the stinker had the nerve to happily whinny at me when she spotted me.

I stood there in surprise, wondering how I was going to get her back in with the herd. And where was her mama? Apparently she had walked to the water trough with her two "aunts," Abby and Dolly - Sultanna was grazing out in the west pasture with Hokey.

Before I could grab a halter and retrieve Two Socks, she gave it away that getting into the nursery paddock was not a new activity.

She pushed her head through the wires of the fence, lifted the top strands up with her shoulders,

and calmly ambled down the lane to come say hello.

I've been saying all along that she is a bold and confident filly, but I did not anticipate this! A quick check showed me the fence was down in several places and I suspected that the electric wire had shorted out.

Tim has an ingenious system of gates and lanes so that he can configure access to pastures as needed. It is also very helpful when you need to close off a pasture quickly.

That system saved me as I began scrambling to shut off the area where Two Socks had gotten out. (Thank goodness she only got into another pasture and not out to an unfenced area!)

Much to the horses' disappointment, I closed off the lane to the trough and did not hang around to pet them and feed them treats. 

But since now they had no water and with it already in the 90s, I needed to make sure they had access to some. 

I walked out to the small paddock and dragged the rubber trough all the way back to where the horses now were. It was so hot and I had to stop a couple of times and catch my breath.

I got the hoses connected and stretched them out from the spigot by the new barn all the way out to the closed section of the lanes system.

Twenty minutes later (I sat in my car with the air conditioning on high) and the herd was safe and sound with water to drink.

My quick barn check had turned into an hour's worth of barn work and I was overheated and exhausted. Those errands I'd planned to run after the barn check could wait - I went straight home, hit the shower, and drank a lot of cold water. 

I will go out a couple of times today just to be sure that Two Socks (and the others) are where they are supposed to be. If they aren't? Well, I guess I will figure it out as I go.

Loose Horse!

Yesterday as I walked out to visit Abby, I could see the tractor parked by the old barn and knew that Tim was inside working on the repair/remodeling project he is doing in there. I stepped down through the open gate into the northeast pasture and stopped in surprise - Hokey was calmly standing there cropping grass.

The agribusiness next door is replacing the fence between the two properties, and it is not all in place yet so we are not putting the horses in there at the moment. And Tim would never have left a gate open if he planned to put horses in that pasture.

We had a loose horse.

A quick visual check showed that Trouble and Abby were in the northwest pasture where they were supposed to be. That was good news.

Luckily it was Hokey who had gotten out. He is easy to catch, especially if you have some of Charlotte's horse treats in your pocket. By this time Tim had stepped out of the old barn and also realized that Hokey was loose, too, so I told him that I'd catch him and put him back with the other horses. 

Catching Hokey was easy - I went into the new barn, grabbed a halter and lead rope, walked out to him holding a treat, and soon had him back where he belonged.

Tim and I were standing together in the paddock of the old barn looking around at all the gates and wondering just how Hokey had gotten out. All the gates of the northwest pasture were closed. 

And then, Hokey outsmarted himself.

He walked up to the paddock fence behind where we were standing. We turned to look at him and there it was - a board had come down and Hokey was getting ready to step over the remaining one and hightail it back into the other pasture again.

We shooed him back from the broken fence, and Tim went into the barn to get nails and a hammer. I stayed behind to keep the horses back - by now Trouble and Abby had joined Hokey and were quite interested in that open spot, too.

Although I didn't do much besides holding one end of the board while Tim hammered the other end in, I enjoyed helping Tim repair the fence. 

Just another day with horses - you never know what you will find!