Show Dog Goes Missing At Atlanta Airport After Escaping Crate, Airline Apologizes

The staff at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport has been unable to locate a show dog which escaped its crate Saturday and has since, gone missing.

Floris Van Essen, the owner of Gale, a two-year-old American Staffordshire terrier, said the prize-winning canine was in Kentucky for a dog show and was scheduled to fly back with a handler to the Netherlands. However, when she was being loaded to a KLM Royal Dutch Airlines flight to Amsterdam, she broke out of the crate she was stored in.

“When they tried to load my dog’s cage, it was empty and they couldn’t find her,” Van Essen told Boston 25 News.

He said the dog handler found out that Gale had disappeared when he reached the gate. An airport staff called the handler from the terminal and informed him of the incident. He was then told to board the plane and wait as the security team tried to sort out the issue. However, the handler ended up flying home without finding out the whereabouts of Gale.

“She had to come out of the box and go through security. She was put back in the box. It was sealed tight and then she went to a secured area," Van Essen told local news channel WSB-TV. “It is none of my concern what exactly happened. I just really want my dog back. She’s lost. She doesn’t understand. She misses us and she’s all alone in a big airport. It’s a terrible ordeal.”

KLM confirmed in a statement to the news station that they did lose track of Gale after the dog broke out of its crate.

“A dog managed to break out of its cage as it was being loaded into the cargo of flight KL622 from Atlanta to Amsterdam on March 23. The dog's owner had been notified. KLM expresses its sincerest regrets and is actively working with the Atlanta Airport to search for the dog,” the company said in a statement.

Airport officials also added that they had a wildlife biologist inside the facility searching for Gale. The airport spreads over 47,000 acres.

The dog’s owner added that he was told there were sightings of Gale but the airport staff were unsuccessful in securing the animal. Although the canine was micro-chipped and friendly, it was also shy, which might make it difficult for the officials to catch it.

"I've never felt this distraught, utterly helpless and hopeless," Van Essen told CBS46. “She's nothing but sweet but as you can imagine, a strange place, hard sounds, airplanes coming over, so she's bound to be skittish and scared out of her mind."

The incident occurred days after a dog died Tuesday on an Air France-KLM flight from Amsterdam to Los Angeles. The cause of the canine’s death was a lack of oxygen on the plane.

“A dog was found dead in the cargo hold of the KL601, after a flight from Amsterdam to Los Angeles on March 19. The dog’s owner has been notified and we express our condolences. In cooperation with the local health authority in the U.S., the CDC, the dog was initially examined to ensure there was no immediately obvious public health threat,” the airline company told People magazine.