Horse Breaks Loose On Board, Forces Flight To Return To New York Few Minutes After Take-Off

A flight heading to Belgium from New York was forced to return to John F. Kennedy International Airport after a horse reportedly escaped its crate inside the plane.

An Air Atlanta Icelandic cargo aircraft took off from JFK at 2.30 PM on Nov. 9, it was in the air for less than half an hour and rose to about 31,000 feet when the pilot sent out a message to the Air Traffic Control (ATC) about a horse getting loose in the carrier, according to news reports.

The flight audio was shared on the YouTube channel "You can see ATC", with the pilot saying, "We are a cargo plane with a live animal, a horse, on board the airplane. And the horse managed to escape his stall."

"We don't have a problem as of flying wise but we need to return back to New York. We cannot get the horse back secured." The pilot called ahead for a veterinarian to meet them in NYC to help with handling the animal, and he later said upon landing that they had a "horse problem, in difficulty," the pilot was heard further saying.

The incident began around 4.30 PM ET, as per the mentioned YouTube Channel. The Boeing 747 turned around off the coast of Canada and flew straight back to JFK, according to Flightradar24. It has also been said that the plane had to drop around 20 tons of fuel over the Atlantic Ocean, "10 miles west of Martha's Vinyard", to make its weight lighter before safely landing.

It is still unknown how the horse escaped its containment or the specifics of what its condition was when the plane flew back to New York City. The audio recording also revealed that the crew had requested a vet be on standby as the animal was "in difficulty". Soon after, the flight successfully took off again and made it to Liege Airport in Belgium.

In September, a Jet2 flight, travelling from Scotland to Spain was forced to make an emergency landing at Palma de Mallorca airport after it nearly ran out of fuel. This happened when hurricane winds struck Mallorca and the severe weather and stormy conditions meant the flight was stranded in the air for quite some time as the pilot was ordered into a holding pattern.

The aircraft had almost 200 people on board when the dramatic event unfolded.

Last month, another Jet2 flight was forced to make an emergency landing after an intoxicated passenger reportedly attacked the cabin crew. The flight was heading from Glasgow to Turkey. The incident occurred on Oct. 15. The flight made an emergency landing at Thessaloniki Airport in the North of Greece after the alarm was raised at around 10:30 PM.

The passenger at fault was eventually removed from the aircraft by police and taken into custody after landing in Greece.