Report: Dog Found Dead in Cargo Hold of Air France Plane

The French government has appealed to the patriotic sentiments of France's major airline, Air France, requesting that it rethink its decision to order airplanes from Boeing. Joel Saget/AFP/Getty Images

A dog was found dead on an Air France flight heading from Amsterdam to Los Angeles, according to a report from TMZ.

The dog, which appears to be a husky or husky mix, was found dead in the cargo hold, TMZ reported, citing sources at the Los Angeles International Airport on March 20.

“One Air France employee with knowledge of the incident claims ... the dog was incorrectly loaded in the cargo hold and lost oxygen during the transatlantic flight,” TMZ reported.

An Airbus A380 operated by Air France lands at John F. Kennedy Airport. Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images

The flight time took about 10 hours and 45 minutes, the report said.

The unnamed owner of the dog picked the animal up at the Air France warehouse at the Los Angeles airport.

“She was devastated,” the report stated, adding that there were pictures of the dead animal that “are too disturbing to share.”

Air France hasn’t issued a statement on the matter.

Other details about the incident aren’t clear.

Last year, there were several reports of dogs dying on planes.

More Dog Deaths on Planes

In June, an 8-year-old Pomeranian dog died on a trip from Delta Air Lines from Phoenix to Newark, CNN reported.

“There was a stop in Detroit at 6 a.m. Alejandro was checked on. He was alive. Then between 8 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. he was checked on again and he was dead,” said Michael Dellegrazie’s attorney, Evan Oshan. Dellegrazie owned the dog.

During a layover in Detroit, the dog was held in a cargo facility. An official with Delta found the dog unresponsive.

“The family is very upset,” Oshan said. “This is essentially their family member who died. To say they are upset is a gross understatement.”

Meanwhile, a United Airlines flight attendant forced a dog into an overhead bin on a flight, apparently leading to the dog’s death, reported The Independent.

Maggie Gremminger was told a passenger had to place her dog into the bin. The dog was barking in the bin, but it went quiet when the plane hit a patch of turbulence.

United accepted “full responsibility” for the death of the animal, which was 10 months old.

A Dreamliner 787-10 arriving from Los Angeles pulls up to a gate in Newark Liberty International Airport in Newark, N.J., on Jan. 7, 2019. Seth Wenig/AP Photo

Gremminger said, “I just flew into LGA and witnessed a United flight attendant instruct a passenger to put her dog bag in the overhead bin. It was clearly a dog and while the customer was adamant about leaving it under the seat, the attendant pushed her to do so.”

“At the end of the flight, the woman found her dog, deceased. She sat in the airplane aisle crying, and all of surrounding passengers were utterly stunned.”

According to another passenger, the flight attendant apparently “INSISTED that the puppy be locked up for three hours without any kind of airflow.”

But, “there was no sound as we landed and opened his kennel. There was no movement as his family called his name,” the passenger said.