Dog owner claims pet died on Hawaiian Airlines flight, demands answers

By Dann Cuellar

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    HONOLULU (KITV) — A Seattle dog owner is left with more questions than answers after waiting for his 4-legged companion for a flight that never arrived.

Randall Carpio says his 2-year-old pit bull, Louie, was unique. He was one in seven in his litter and avoided getting dirty.

Louie was in training to become an emotional support dog for his patients in his Seattle medical office.

“He would’ve assisted with mobility, security. I envisioned him being trained to move objects for people,” says Carpio, a naturopathic doctor, originally from Kona.

But that dream was not meant to be.

Capiro claims Louie died on a Hawaiian Airlines flight on July 21–just two days before being medically cleared to fly.

“He was expected to fly from the Big Island to Seattle, and he had a stopover on Oahu. Unfortunately, he apparently passed away on his layover.”

Carpio received the news through a text message from his dad–who dropped Louie off at the Kona International Airport.

“I was in disbelief. I was very upset. I was sad. It was like someone told me I lost my son, essentially,” he describes.

Capiro permitted the airlines to order a necropsy–to find out what happened—but Capiro claims that report came back as inconclusive.

“The vet concluded that he couldn’t determine how Louie passed away. So we don’t have a report. All they said to me was they would cremate him and send his ashes through the mail with his belongings.”

Capiro has retained an attorney–with the hopes of getting more answers.

Evan Oshan has represented other dog owners in lawsuits against airlines before, but this case he says, is different.

“I don’t understand what went wrong. But I do know a healthy dog was brought to the airlines with no health issues at all. We have no report of what happened. We have no photos of Louis in his cage. Nothing,” Oshan says.

KITV4 received this statement from Hawaiian Airlines:

We are deeply sorry about the passing of our customer’s dog. We shared the necropsy results with the animal’s owner earlier in the week, and we are in the process of returning the dog’s remains.

Capiro and Oshan are not filing a lawsuit–for now–they are just trying to figure out what happened to the beloved pooch.

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