United Airlines could be looking at criminal charges after a 1o-month-old puppy died on a flight Monday night.

The New York Daily News reports that the Harris County District Attorney’s Office in Houston will probe the incident after a flight attendant reportedly demanded that a passenger place her French Bulldog puppy in an overhead bin. When the flight landed, the owner found that her dog had died during travel.

As CrimeOnline previously reported, the flight attendant reportedly claimed after the discovery that she did not realize a dog was in the bag, but the family who lost their dog disputes that.

“My mom was like, ‘It’s a dog! It’s a dog!’” 11-year-old Sophia Ceballos, told WNBC, who received the dog as a birthday gift, told WNBC-Chicago.

“And (the flight attendant) said, ‘You have to put it up there.’”

A United Airlines spokesperson acknowledged to the Daily News that the family alerted the flight attendant to the presence of the animal, but claims she didn’t hear or understand them.

“However, our flight attendant did not hear or understand her, and did not knowingly place the dog in the overhead bin,” the airline said.

Carvana Cloud, head of the animal cruelty division for the Harris County D.A.’s office, told KPRC that there are still a lot of unknowns in the investigation.

“We are at the very preliminary stage of the investigation, but it definitely does make it more challenging because it is not something that happened in someone’s backyard here locally or in someone’s home,” Cloud said.

“We don’t know if the dog died in Houston or if the dog died in New York or on the way to New York.”

The day after the French bulldog died, United confused the itineraries of two dogs traveling in cargo and sent one to Japan that was meant to go to Kansas City. The airline reportedly flew the dog back to the U.S. in first class.

[Feature image: Facebook]