Report Details

Incident 1 Carrier: Alaska Airlines Flight: 60 (Juneau, AK to Seattle, WA) Date of incident: Friday, December 17, 2010 Time of incident: Approximately 12:15 P.M. PT

Description of animal (including name): An eight-month-old, female Lab, Chow, Red Heeler mix breed dog

Narrative description of incident: A passenger traveled from Juneau to Seattle with her friend’s dog. The dog was being transferred onto her connecting flight to Washington DC, when the lead ramp agent placed her kennel on the belt loader and turned back around, the dog was missing from the kennel. Upon inspection of the kennel the Lead Ramp Agent noticed that the right front pin was missing from the kennel, which would have allowed the door of the kennel to release and her to escape.

The passenger stayed in Seattle to aide in the dog’s search with the Port of Seattle for nearly 4 hours. The Port of Seattle biologist states that he had one failed net deployment and later setup traps to aide in the dog’s capture. The dog moved from one end of the airport to the other and then eventually no sightings of the dog later into that evening.

On Sunday, December 19, 2010 Alaska Airlines flew the dog’s owner in from Reno to Seattle to aid in the dog’s search, with no sightings of the dog.

On Friday, December 31, 2010 Alaska Airlines brought a Private Pet Detective in to aid in the tracking of the dog’s movements, she was tracked to an exterior airport gate on South 154th Street and he dog continued to track her scent headed East and it was the scent was lost at 26th Ave South and South 154th Street near the overpass of SR 518.

On Thursday, January 6, 2011 The Missing Pet Partnership notified Alaska Airlines that the dog was found lifeless just off State Highway SR 518, near the I5 interchange, apparently hit by a car.

Narrative description of the cause of the incident: The dog was able to escape because a pin was missing from the kennel door assembly. The dog died when hit by a car.

Narrative description of any corrective action taken in response to the incident: No action required.

No photographs available