By Maureen O’Hare and Katie Bo Lillis,

A Boeing 747 en route from New York JFK to Liege, Belgium, was forced to turn around on November 9 after a horse got loose in the cargo hold.

The horse, which partially escaped its stall while airborne, had to be euthanized due to the extent of its injuries, according to two people familiar with the episode.

The cargo flight operated by charter airline Air Atlanta Icelandic had climbed to around 31,000 feet when the crew contacted Air Traffic Control in Boston to report that the horse had escaped.

A representative from Air Atlanta Icelandic told CNN that the information in the “You Can See ATC” video is correct.

Turbulence struck and the horse jumped

The horse was among 15 being transported to Liege, an import hub for Europe when turbulence struck shortly after takeoff, according to John Cuticelli, the head of the corporation responsible for operating animal quarantine and export at John F. Kennedy International Airport.

The horse became spooked and jumped halfway over the high front barrier of the stall and became hung up, with his front legs on one side of the barrier and his hind legs trapped on the inside of the stall.

“The horse jumped and managed to get its two front legs over the (front) barrier and then got jammed,” Cuticelli said. “It’s only the second time in all the years I’ve been doing this that I’ve ever seen that happen. And we do thousands of horses a year. A very unfortunate event  but that horse was spooked.”

In the recordings, Air Traffic Control can be heard granting the pilots’ request to return to JFK Airport and, because the plane was too heavy, to dump 20 tons of fuel east of Nantucket.

The pilot also asks for a veterinarian to meet the plane upon landing, because “we have a horse in difficulty.”

At that point, Cuticelli said, “we dispersed veterinary care, animal handlers, medical equipment, horse slings, a horse ambulance, everything necessary to accommodate that horse.”

“We had to take the other horses out to get the equipment in to get the horse out,” he said.

But once the animal was on the ground, it was determined that its injuries were too severe to survive and it was euthanized, Cuticelli said.

CNN was not able to confirm the nature of the horse’s injuries. A representative for the shipping company that transported the horse declined to comment.

Culled from CNN.