Horse on flight: Air Atlanta Icelandic forced to turn back to New York City after horse breaks loose from cargo

An Air Atlanta Icelandic flight was forced to turn back less than 20 minutes into its journey after a horse broke loose from the plane’s cargo and was unable to be secured back in its allocated area. 

A reconstruction of the flight path was uploaded to YouTube showing how the aircraft had ascended to 31,000 feet over Boston when the pilots contacted air traffic control. Viewers can hear the pilots asking if they can be allowed to return to New York after the crew could not get the horse secured and asked for a veterinarian to be present after landing. 

The flight had departed New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport for Liege in Belgium when the horse became free. The YouTube channel, ‘You can see ATC’, claims the incident, on flight number CC4592, happened shortly after 4.06pm local time (9.06pm GMT) on November 9.

According to the YouTube clip the flight crew were forced to dump about 20 tons of fuel near Martha's Vineyard, a Massachusetts island, as it returned to New York. The pilots said: 'We are a cargo plane with a live animal, a horse, on board. The horse has broken out of its stall. We don't have a problem as of flying wise but we need to return, return back to New York. We cannot get the horse back secured.”

Flightradar24 shows the flight taking off again at 6.35pm local time (11.35pm GMT) and landing successfully in Liege after roughly six hours. It landed at 6.49am local time (5.49am GMT) on the morning of November 10.

NationalWorld has contacted Air Atlanta Icelandic for comment.