A dog is dead after a United Airlines flight attendant reportedly pressured a passenger to stow the animal in an overhead compartment.Passengers on the flight from Houston to New York City described the event on social media, agreeing that the flight attendant urged the passenger to store the dog in the overhead bin, despite her objections. When the plane landed, the passenger retrieved the travel bag containing the dog from the bin to find that it had died during the flight — likely from suffocation. Passengers say they heard the dog barking but assumed the bin was ventilated because the flight attendant had been so insistent.
Advertisement
“There was no sound as we landed and opened his kennel,” June Lara, who said she was a passenger on the flight, wrote on Facebook. “There was no movement as his family called his name. I held her baby as the mother attempted to resuscitate 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 United spokeswoman told VICE News that the airline was accepting “full responsibility” for the animal’s death and said it will conduct an investigation.
“This was a tragic accident that should never have occurred, as pets should never be placed in the overhead bin,” the airline added in a statement. “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 occurred to prevent this from ever happening again.”United has faced more than controversy over animal deaths on their flights in just the last year. Three Iowa businessmen sued the airline last July after a giant rabbit died in the cargo area of a flight from London, and on a separate flight months later, a 5-year-old dog was found dead in the cargo area of a United flight.Cover image by Jeff Greenberg/UIG via Getty Images