A dog managed to open an airliner’s luggage hold during a flight from St Petersburg to Moscow, forcing the crew to conduct an emergency landing, Russia’s Interfax news agency reported Monday.

The dog, described as being “not large,” broke out of its kennel and “triggered activation” of the luggage hold’s door, causing the door to open several dozen centimetres and setting off an alarm, according to the report.

The Boeing 737 was at an altitude of about 4,000 metres on its descent to Moscow, the report said.

Luckily for the dog, it “did not crawl out and remained alive,” a source at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport was quoted as saying.(dpa/NAN)