American Flight Diverts After Service Dog Bites Passenger

Talk about an uncomfortable reason for a diversion…

American Eagle jet diverts to Colorado Springs over dog bite

This incident happened on Tuesday, April 15, 2025, and involves American flight AA4980, scheduled to operate from Provo (PVU) to Dallas Fort Worth (DFW). The flight was operated by a SkyWest CRJ-700 with the registration code N767SK, on behalf of American Eagle.

The flight took off at 2:02PM local time, and climbed up to 37,000 feet. The first hour of the flight was routine, as the plane flew southeast over Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico. However, the aircraft then made a sharp turn to the left, and diverted to Colorado Springs (COS). It touched down there at 3:28PM, just under 90 minutes after it first departed Provo.

The plane spent a bit over an hour on the ground in Colorado Springs, so that a patient could be transported from the airport to a local hospital due to the dog bite. It’s not known how serious the injury was.

After a little over an hour on the ground, the plane once again continued to Dallas Fort Worth. It took off at 4:39PM, and landed there at 7:31PM, just under 2.5 hours behind the scheduled 5:05PM arrival.

This is a terrible situation all-around

First and foremost, I hope that the person who was injured makes a speedy recovery. I hope the injury wasn’t that serious (in terms of having a long term impact), and it was simply that they weren’t equipped to handle this well onboard the flight.

Dogs on planes have been a contentious topic in the United States for years. Back in the day, we had the concept of “emotional support animals,” whereby people could self-certify that they needed to travel with animals in the cabin for emotional support reasons (as the name suggests). While that loophole was closed, it was replaced by another one, which is that people can now self-certify that they need psychiatric service animals. This is a similar concept, except there are more limits on animal types and breeds.

So a lot of dogs flying around in cabins aren’t actually traditional service dogs that are performing specific functions (like for the visually impaired), but instead, are psychiatric service animals.

Generally when a dog misbehaves and bites someone on a plane, it’s not a formally trained service animal, but rather, a self-certified psychiatric service animal.

As a dog lover, I feel kind of bad for dogs being put into this situation:

• Flying must be really stressful for dogs, and they’re in a confined environment, potentially very close to strangers
• The whole reason we see this psychiatric service animal concept to begin with is because the lack of humane options that airlines provide for transporting dogs and other pets, as live animals really shouldn’t be put in the cargo hold

Bottom line

An American flight from Provo to Dallas diverted to Colorado Springs, after a service dog bit another passenger, requiring hospitalization. The plane spent a bit over an hour on the ground, and ultimately landed in Dallas around 2.5 hours behind schedule.

What do you make of this American diversion?