A woman and her pet pot-bellied pig were removed from a US Airways flight in Connecticut because her pet pig was loose in the ail and stinking up the plane's cabin, other passengers said.
When the woman boarded the plane fellow passengers thought she was carrying a dark-colored duffel bag over her shoulder.
"Turns out, it wasn't a duffel bag. We could smell it -- and it was a pig on a leash," said passenger Jonathan Skolnik, a professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
"She tethered it to the arm rest next to me and started to deal with her stuff, but the pig was walking back and forth."
The woman and her pig were asked to leave the plane when the animal became "disruptive," airline spokeswoman Laura Masvidal confirmed.
The woman had brought the curly-tailed pet pig aboard at Connecticut's Bradley International Airport as an "emotional support animal," she said.
Bringing an emotional support animal -- which can include cats, dogs, monkey, miniature horses and, yes, even pigs -- on an aircraft is allowed under federal rules adopted in 2012.
The Department of Transportation's manual on such matters says:
"If you determine the pot-bellied service pig is a service animal, you must permit the service animal to accompany the passenger to her seat provided the animal does not obstruct the aisle or present any safety issues and the animal is behaving appropriately in a public setting."
Deciding when a particular support animal is too disruptive to be allowed to travel is up to transportation officials.
When the woman's pig decided to use the plane's aisle as a toilet, that was too much for the airline, even after the woman attempted to clean up after the animal and control its behavior.
Flights attendants asked her to leave, which she did, taking the pig with her.
A number of passengers had taken to Twitter when they realized they might be sharing their flight with a porcine passenger.
Pig on a plane! #what? "@GMA: Pigs don't fly? Well, this one came close. Would the pig ... https://t.co/BYVyBeRY7z pic.twitter.com/XbHTMRdSwt"
- Elissa Rivas (@elissa_rivas13) November 28, 2014
