Plane forced to turn around mid-air after horse escapes its crate

Plane staff were not able to get the horse secured
FRANCE-ANIMAL-TRANSPORT-PLANE
A man loads a horse in a box to travel on a cargo plane (file picture)
Getty
Jordan King16 November 2023

A pilot had to turn a cargo plane while around 30,000ft in the air because a horse was roaming around.

The Boeing 747, which was headed from New York to Belgium last Thursday, was around an hour and a half into its journey when the pilot called air traffic control.

He said: "We have a live animal, a horse, on board the aeroplane. The horse managed to escape. We cannot get the horse back secured."

The pilot also asked that a vet meet the Air Atlanta Icelandic flight 4592 on its return, according to a recording of their communication.

On its way back, the plane stopped to dump 20 tonnes of fuel east of Nantucket before landing back at John F Kennedy International Airport.

The Air Atlanta Icelandic flight 4592's route last Thursday
The Air Atlanta Icelandic flight 4592's route last Thursday
FlightAware

The aircraft took off again later that same day and finally reached its destination on Friday morning, according to flight tracking website FlightRadar24.

It is not clear why the horse was being transported or how it escaped.

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