Cancer patient's emotional support dog, another pet die on Emirates flight after they were placed in cargo hold
A woman who was flying from Dubai to Washington, DC, for cancer treatment on an Emirates flight, was met with devastating news when she landed that her pet dogs, who were placed in the cargo hold, had died.
The terminally ill passenger who was identified by TMZ only by her first name, Hannah, is currently battling leukemia. Upon landing at Dulles International Airport on August 21, she was informed that her dogs Panda and Beluga, had died. Among them, Panda was her emotional support animal, while the other one was the dog’s companion. Both of them were French bulldogs.
The incident took place aboard Flight EK 231. Hannah reportedly paid $2,600 to ship her dogs after she was told she couldn't carry them with her into the cabin because they weighed more than eight pounds. As a result, the pets were meant to be transported to a specially-made cargo hold for live animals, located below the cabin for the flight. The hold was a separate area from the place which held passengers' luggage. However, due to an oversight by flight staff, Panda and Beluga ended up in the luggage hold.
A necropsy report showed that the cause of death of the two dogs was oxygen deprivation. There was also blood on Panda's body for some unknown reason. Evan Oshan, Hannah’s attorney said that the aggrieved family wants justice for the pets they lost. "Dogs are not luggage. They are living breathing family members and in this case, provided tremendous emotional support for a cancer patient," the lawyer said.
Oshan also believed that Panda should have been allowed into the cabin with Hannah because a letter from her doctor from back in 2018 clearly classified Panda as an emotional support animal. "Emirates charged for the dogs' passage even though medical documentation was provided by the cancer patient. This is wrong!" he said.
The lawyer said that there was a good chance that the two dogs would still be alive if they were placed in the correct cargo old as other animals aboard the flight, presumably placed in the proper hold, survived the journey unscathed.
In a similar incident in 2018, a Dubai pet owner recalled being "devastated" after his beloved Pomeranian died aboard an Emirates flight to the Philippines. On September 1, 2018, Cliff Rozal arranged for a friend to accompany his pet Snoopy from Dubai International Airport to Mactan-Cebu International Airport. The dog was almost six years old and was in "excellent health" before the flight.
However, on arrival, the friend was sadly informed that Snoopy had died of hypoxia, a lack of oxygen reaching the body's tissues, during the flight. "You have to go to the cargo hold area to collect animals and when my friend got there the customs and airport staff told him that [Snoopy] was no longer breathing," said Rozal, who was waiting for his beloved pet in Malaybalay City in Bukidnon.
"The customs veterinary surgeon said he had been dead for four hours already, which means he died mid-flight. I told them that they should have kept him in the cabin where the oxygen was sufficient." An Emirates representative at the time said the airline "expresses our deepest condolences on the passing of M. Rozal’s pet. We follow strict guidelines to ensure the comfort and safety of all animals we transport, and are conducting a thorough investigation into the situation."
They are yet to address the latest error.