Living Nightmare as Two Beloved Dogs Die in the Cargo Hold of ‘Hot’ Plane

A Defense Intelligence Agency employee and his family have been left heartbroken following the unexplained deaths of their two beloved bulldogs during a military-contracted flight back to the U.S. from South Korea.

Anne Surette, the wife of Department of Defense civilian employee Timothy Surette, is demanding action following the deaths of Winter, their 11-year-old Old English bulldog, and Soju, a 5-year-old French bulldog, during their journey from Seoul, South Korea, to Seattle, Washington.

“I still cry everyday,” Anne Surette told Newsweek. “My son sleeps with their leashes beside him. This was supposed to be Winter’s welcome home (we got her when we were in Virginia almost 12 years ago). It was supposed to be Soju’s first trip in the U.S. But everything is gone. It’s unreal. I hope that we are just having a nightmare, and we will soon wake up and see them again.”

Surette’s husband had been stationed over in South Korea with the family, prior to being redeployed to Washington DC.

The Surette family boarded a Patriot Express flight heading back to the U.S. on August 17, per Military Times. These are U.S. government-contracted flights designated for members and families of the Armed Forces. They involve commercial airliners contracted by Air Mobility Command (AMC).

Newsweek has contacted AMC for comment, along with the commercial airline Surette says took charge of the flight.

Winter and Soju joined them in the hold of the plane. The bulldogs were in good spirits prior to takeoff, with Surette filming a video of the pair appearing fine as they prepared for the flight.

The International Pet and Animal Transportation Association estimates that over 2 million pets and other live animals are transported by air every year in the U.S., with more than 4 million worldwide. Air travel can be costly for pets.

Surette said that, in truth, the family chose to take the AMC flight back to the U.S. because they “couldn’t find an airline that would fly our dogs where it would not cost us $4,000 per dog.”

Despite this, the family felt confident that the journey would go off without a hitch. Winter had been taken on similar flights when the family first moved to Hawaii and then on to Seoul. “We were informed that AMC is now a temperature-controlled flight for pets so we felt comfortable to fly them back taking the flight,” Surette said.

Because pets are not allowed in the cargo area of a flight for more than 12 hours, the Surettes planned to travel from Osan Air Base, 40 miles south of the South Korean capital, Seoul, to Seattle, with a short layover at Misawa Air Base in Japan.

“We planned to drive from Seattle to DC with the dogs so they didn’t have to go through more flights after Seattle,” Surette said. “We had a rental car and pet-friendly hotels booked for this whole move.”

The first part of the journey to Misawa went off without a hitch. During the stopover, the family were allowed to take Winter and Soju out of their carriers for a 10-minute walk. “We fed them water and refilled the water for them,” Surette said. “When we were told to get back on the plane, we thought that our fur babies would be loaded right before the plane took off. However, it didn’t work that way.”

The problems began when they reboarded the plane. Passengers were informed there would be a delay and then the plane lost power, with the onboard air conditioning shutting down in the process. Surette estimates that they spent almost three hours on the Tarmac without air conditioning, waiting to take off.

During that time, Surette said a flight attendant told them that the dogs were “OK and fed water.” The family were also informed that they had “opened a door to allow air flow for the dogs.” Even so, she remained concerned amid the sweltering temperatures.

“Flight attendants had to go around and give water to us because it was so warm in the plane so I can’t imagine how it was for our babies,” Surette said. “People who had their pets with them on the plane ended up having to take their pets out from the carry-on crates because their pets couldn’t breathe well.”

Despite the family’s continued concerns for the welfare of their dogs, she said a flight attendant reiterated that they were fine and had been checked. Though the plane did eventually take off again, Surette said it remained hot onboard.

“The flight attendants even made announcements that they usually gave out hot towels for people throughout the flight but because it was so hot, they ended up giving out cold towels instead,” Surette added.

When the family finally landed in Seattle, the Surettes were given the devastating news that their dogs had died. Surette later got to see their dogs, noting that their bodies “were already hard and stiff” and that, more alarmingly, “one of their water bottles was missing and the other was empty.”

None of it made sense to Surette. Winter and Soju were in good health and had the necessary certification to prove they were fit to fly. Both had appeared fine during the stopover in Misawa.

However, hours later, the bulldogs were dead, with the family left scrambling to make arrangements to have their two beloved pets cremated. “It was just awful and unreal,” Surette said.

A day later, two Air Force officers came to meet the family and confirmed that an investigation had been launched into what went wrong. In a statement issued to Military Times, Air Force 1st Lt. James Stewart said that AMC officials are looking into what happened. However, he added “once passengers and pets were loaded onto the plane, the international charter service personnel take over the remainder of coordination for preparing the aircraft, passengers and pets for flight.

“It is at this point that AMC personnel were no longer involved in the immediate decision-making and preparation of flight,” Stewart said.

Surette believes there was insufficient air flow in the area where her dogs were kept on the plane and that they should have been taken out. She also questioned the “assessment they used to say that the dogs were OK” in the hold amid the high temperatures.

Surette said the family has heard little from the airline involved. However, she is not seeking an apology. She just wants answers as to what happened and to make sure no one else has to go through the nightmare they are enduring when transporting beloved pets. She believes the military should do more to accommodate the safe and comfortable transport of personnel’s pets.

“We want them to not just come out and say they are sorry and would do better. They need to actually take action to change things, not just on paper. This shouldn’t happen again,” Surette said.

“Even if Winter and Soju were still alive, it was still not right for them to be in the hot cabin like that,” Surette added. “We want to see action, not just new sentences added to the policy, but real action on how these family members are taken care of. To see them as our family, not just animals. Proper training and real consequences if they don’t take precautions.”