Airline: US Airways
Incident Date: May 19, 2005
Report Date: July 2005
Incident Type: Death
Animal: Dog
Brachycephalic: No Definition
Animal Age: Not reported
Flight Number: US893
Originating Airport: FRA (Frankfurt International Airport )
Destination Airport: DCA (Ronald Reagan Washington National)
Reporting Airport: DCA (Ronald Reagan Washington National)
Report:
US Airways Flight # US893 FRA-PHL
May 19, 2005, between 12:55pm (local, Frankfurt, Germany) and 10:30pm (local, Washington, DC)
Dog – Sheltie breed, named “Kellyâ€
Ms. [redacted] checked two (2) dogs on the FRA-PHL-DCA flight. Upon arrival into DCA, the customer reported one of the two dogs did not look well. Ms. [redacted] reports the veterinarian ultimately advised her to put the animal to sleep after the autopsy showed the dog ingested a toxic substance. The customer’s sister, [name redacted], reports the veterinarian indicated the poisoning most likely occurred during flight, and Ms. [redacted] described the poisoning substance as “antifreeze.†Ms. [redacted] reports that the dog was “sticky†when she took it out of the kennel.
The cause of the incident cannot be ascertained despite a thorough follow up investigation, including the following:
a. [Name redacted], Supervisor – System Baggage Services, asked if the kennel had any sort of substance on it when they picked it up from US Airways. Ms. [redacted] indicated she did not know, that the owner had left the kennel outside overnight in the rain, and it was completely clean now.
b. Staff in Philadelphia and Washington was interviewed. None of the staff people interviewed could recall any abnormalities with the dogs or the condition of the kennels.
c. Maintenance Control was then contacted. Neither aircraft involved in the transportation of the dogs has had any abnormality related to spills, fluids or other substances in the cargo bins.
Since no evidence of malfunctioning aircraft systems or personnel mishandling were found, no corrective action is being taken.
PetFlight Report:
July 2005 Airline Pet Travel Report
Original Report
Map of all airports that have reported an air travel, pet related incident.
The inspiration for PetFlight.