Nine sloths on their way from South America to Indonesia were trapped in the cold when the aircraft got stuck on a taxiway. Three of them froze to death since noone checked up on them for 24 hours.
Really noone could be bothered to do anything about them? I'm sure the pilots got of the aircraft so I'd asume the animals could have been moved to a more suitable location too.

The article: Three sloths die of cold on aircraft immobilized for more than 24 hours at Liege Airport, Belgium - Aviation24.be

The fact that there were live animals on the aircraft would be on the weight and balance paperwork along with any freight manifests. I'm sure the flight crew was thinking that the local ground handlers were aware and would take care of the situation. The article doesn't say whether anyone had access to the aircraft to get the animals or if there was any way to get heat on the aircraft while it was stuck. An unfortunate situation. I doubt that we'll ever hear what the outcome was for who dropped the ball.

1 minute ago, mwilk said:

The fact that there were live animals on the aircraft would be on the weight and balance paperwork along with any freight manifests. I'm sure the flight crew was thinking that the local ground handlers were aware and would take care of the situation. The article doesn't say whether anyone had access to the aircraft to get the animals or if there was any way to get heat on the aircraft while it was stuck. An unfortunate situation. I doubt that we'll ever hear what the outcome was for who dropped the ball.

Hopefully lessons are learned so it doesn't happen again. I'd assume if anyone had realised there were live animals on board they would make sure they were taken care off. Perhaps live animals should always be accompanied by a keeper or vetinarian but perhaps that isn't practical.

The problem with paperwork is that it's always someone elses resonsibility to act. The pilots either forgot or didn't notice they had live animals on board, or else they figured they would be taken care of by "someone" since it's not their job to do so. The airport personel might not have been notified about them either.

51 minutes ago, mwilk said:

The article doesn't say whether anyone had access to the aircraft to get the animals

Well, at least they had access to get the flight crew so why not the animals?

For live cargo, wouldn't the flight crew be responsible until the animals have been offloaded and wouldn't there be a formal procedure for transferring the responsibility to the ground handlers when the animals have been offloaded?

5 hours ago, dmwalker said:

Well, at least they had access to get the flight crew so why not the animals?

For live cargo, wouldn't the flight crew be responsible until the animals have been offloaded and wouldn't there be a formal procedure for transferring the responsibility to the ground handlers when the animals have been offloaded?

No. The flight crew would be responsible for piloting the aircraft. The ground handlers had to be aware that there were live animals on the plane. The article doesn't state the aircraft type or where exactly it was on the airport.

25 minutes ago, mwilk said:

The article doesn't state the aircraft type or where exactly it was on the airport.

I think it was a QATAR Airways B777F.

This might be the one in the photo:

https://www.sudinfo.be/id609382/article/2023-01-30/indignation-liege-airport-trois-paresseux-meurent-de-froid-dans-un-avion

 

Edited January 30, 20233 yr by dmwalker

22 minutes ago, dmwalker said:

I think it was a QATAR Airways B777F.

This might be the one in the photo:

https://www.sudinfo.be/id609382/article/2023-01-30/indignation-liege-airport-trois-paresseux-meurent-de-froid-dans-un-avion

 

If that's it, the pushback looks like it had a problem. It's not supposed to be under the fuselage with the nosewheel cranked around. Hard to say what happened. I'm sure everyone is looking to cover their fannies since the news media has the story. 

"It seems handlers had some form of heating in place for the animals, but for whatever reason it stopped working."

"Swissport, which provides ground handling services at Liege, has released a statement claiming that it is now aware of the incident but was not required to perform any handling duties on that particular aircraft."