Three two-toed sloth freeze to death at Belgium airport en route to Malaysia

Two Toed Sloth

Three sloths have died after they were left on a freezing aircraft at Liege Airport, Belgium for over 24 hours. The deaths occurred during a cold snap at Liege last month, which caused a shutdown of the airport.

A Qatar Airways Boeing 777F was the aircraft carrying the sloths. It ended up getting stuck on the taxiway at Liege Airport over the weekend of January 21-22 due to the freezing condition. Since the taxiway was blocked, it was hard for the authorities to reach there. After it was finally reached 24 hours later, three of the nine sloths being transported on board were found dead 

A Qatar Airways spokesperson said, "We transport tens of thousands of animals each year without incident and we are deeply concerned by this tragic loss."

Wallonia Public Service spokesperson Nicolas Yernaux said, "The plane was supposed to transit for two hours to refuel, but was not able to take off due to the weather conditions. For a reason that has yet to be determined and that is part of the investigation that we are conducting, the heating stopped or was stopped."

As reported by Politico, Swissport said, "We are aware of the incident, but don’t have insights into the details of what happened as no handling was required by Swissport.