Flying with animals often involves a lot of rules, especially if you are going abroad. They must have passports, countless vaccinations, and some countries do not allow you to fly with pets at all. If you have a small animal, it’s sometimes possible for them to fly in the cabin with you, while larger pets fly in cargo.
For one family, Monday’s flight with their 10-month-old French bulldog would end in tragedy.
A mom and her two children were flying on United Airlines flight UA1284, when a flight attendant forced the mother to put the young dog in the overhead bin above her head.
According to the flight attendant, the pet carrier that the puppy was in was sticking out into the aisle, and therefore couldn’t be stored by the family’s feet.
Another passenger, June Lara, described the awful experience in a Facebook post.
The dog was heard barking and crying for a while at the start of the flight, but soon went silent. The poor puppy had run out of air and suffocated to death there among the other passengers’ luggage.
“There was no sound as we landed and opened his kennel. There was no movement as his family called his name. I held her baby as the mother attempted to resucitate their 10 month old puppy.
I cried with them three minutes later as she sobbed over his lifeless body. My heart broke with theirs as I realized he was gone.”
A spokesperson for United Airlines, Charlie Hobart, spoke out about the tragedy:
“We assume full responsibility for this tragedy and express our deepest condolences to the family and are committed to supporting them. We are thoroughly investigating what occured to prevent this from ever happening again,” reports CNN.
I can’t imagine the family’s grief after this tragedy.
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