RUNNING WILD

Plane Forced to Return to New York City After Horse Breaks Free

It is not known how the animal broke free, but the plane was able to depart again and landed in Belgium safely.

A Boeing 747 cargo plane with a horse on board had to return to John F. Kennedy International Airport after the animal broke out of its crate inside the aircraft, according to an Air Traffic Control audio recording. A pilot on the Nov. 9 flight can be heard saying, “The horse managed to escape its stall. There’s no issue with flying, but we need to go back to New York as we can’t resecure the horse.” ABC News reported that the plane then reversed course and had to dump approximately 20 tons of fuel over the Atlantic Ocean. It is not known how the horse broke free, but the plane was able to depart again and landed in Belgium the next morning, according to data from FlightRadar24. Air Atlanta Icelandic, the charter airline whose flight was affected, did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment.