A flight from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport had to turn around less than 30 minutes into a flight to Belgium because a horse got loose on the plane.
The horse had been loaded in a stall onto an Air Atlanta Icelandic cargo plane, WABC reported.
The flight had only reached about 31,000 feet when it had to return during the incident on Nov. 9, Sky News reported.
The pilots radioed air traffic control in Boston to say that the horse couldn’t get secured into its carrier and that a veterinarian would be needed when they landed, CNN reported.
“We are a cargo plane with a live animal, a horse, on board,” a pilot said, according to WABC. “The horse has broken out of its stall. There’s no issue with flying, but we need to go back to New York as we can’t resecure the horse.”
They said the horse was “in difficulty” but didn’t say exactly what was wrong with the animal, TMZ reported.
An edited recording from Live ATC was shared on YouTube, where the pilot can be heard saying the plane had to dump about 20 tons of fuel near Martha’s Vineyard before returning to the airport.
They had to dump the fuel to make sure it was safe to land, Sky News reported.
A representative from Air Atlanta Icelandic told CNN that the audio shared by “You Can See ATC” was accurate.
The flight took off once again after a three-hour delay.
CNN reported this isn’t the first time an animal escaped its enclosure while being shipped on a plane. An otter and a rat got out of hand luggage on a VietJet flight. A bear cub got out of its crate from Baghdad to Dubai, while a Cape cobra slithered up a South African pilot’s shirt, prompting an emergency landing.
