Icelandic Air Atlanta: An escaped horse on board a Boeing 747 causes the flight to be cancelled

The Icelandic airline Atlanta is famous for an order from 2016. At that time, the cargo airline provided the Boeing 747 with which the heavy metal band Iron Maiden completed their world tour. The customers aren’t always conspicuous, but they are sometimes wild and energetic, as demonstrated on Thursday (November 9).

There was, among other things, a horse on board the Boeing 747-400 F that day. It was supposed to be flown from New York JFK Airport to Liège with the rest of the cargo on board flight CC4592. But it did not reach Belgium.

Escape from the box

Because obviously the animal didn’t like it at all in the jumbo jet. Shortly after takeoff, the Icelandair Atlanta crew notified U.S. air traffic control. “We are a cargo plane. “We have a live animal… a horse on board,” she said over the radio. And then: “The horse managed to escape from its box.”

The radio pilot continued that they had no problems controlling the plane. However, he asked to return to New York. “We cannot insure the horse,” he explained.

The escaped crocodile caused the plane to crash

Having an escaped animal on board can certainly lead to problems. A horse can weigh 800 kilograms – and transporting such a heavy load can be uncomfortable. In addition, a startled animal can damage objects on board. However, Icelandic Air Atlanta’s Boeing 747 ended up landing in New York without any problems.

Things don’t always go well. In 2010, a passenger in the Democratic Republic of the Congo smuggled a crocodile on board a plane in a suitcase. The animal freed itself in flight. Then all the passengers ran towards the cockpit. The resulting shift in the aircraft’s center of gravity led to a loss of control. Let L-410 crashed, 20 passengers died, only one survived.