Plane turns back to JFK after horse escapes on board

A Boeing 747 en route from New York JFK to Liege, Belgium, was forced to turn around on November 9 after a horse got loose in the cargo hold. The horse, which partially escaped its stall while airborne, had to be euthanized due to the extent of its injuries, according to two people familiar with the episode. The cargo flight operated by charter airline Air Atlanta Icelandic had climbed to around 31,000 feet when the crew contacted Air Traffic Control in Boston to report that the horse had escaped. “We don’t have a problem (…) flying-wise,” one of the pilots says in a video reconstruction by YouTube channel “You Can See ATC,” but “we cannot get the horse back secured.” A representative from Air Atlanta Icelandic told CNN that the information in the “You Can See ATC” video is correct. The horse was among 15 being transported to Liege — an import hub for Europe — when turbulence struck shortly after takeoff, according to John Cuticelli, the head of the corporation responsible for operating animal quarantine and export at John F. Kennedy International Airport. The horse became spooked and jumped halfway over the high front barrier of the stall and became hung up, with his front legs on one side of the barrier and his hind legs trapped on the inside of the stall. “The horse jumped and managed to get its two front legs over the (front) barrier and then got jammed,” Cuticelli 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.”<br/>