Pet Lost in Jet Eludes Searchers in a Game of Cat and Mouse

A pet cat lost in a jetliner’s cargo bay at Los Angeles International Airport became the focus of a wide search Friday as its owner pleaded with officials of Tower Air to ground the Boeing 747 airliner until the animal is found.

“I’m angry and extremely worried,” said Carol Ann Timmel, 26, of Beverly Hills, whose 3-year-old cat, Tabitha, got out of a small cage and disappeared in the plane’s cargo hold after the airliner landed in Los Angeles on Thursday.

Despite Timmel’s protests, and after a 35-minute delay during which a ground crew searched in vain, the airplane flew back to New York--presumably with the cat somewhere aboard--less than two hours after it arrived.

Timmel said airline personnel at the airport told her that her brown, black and white cat disappeared into a narrow space that separates a storage compartment from the plane’s fuselage.

“I screamed, ‘That plane’s not going anywhere! I want my cat!’ ” she said. “But after a while they just said, “OK, wrap it up. The plane’s gotta go!’ ”

Officials at New York-based Tower Air said Friday that they were still trying to locate the animal, but refused a demand by Timmel’s lawyer that the plane be taken out of service, saying there was no evidence that the cat was still aboard.

“We’re very sensitive to the loss of this valued pet,” said Nick Lacey, the airline’s vice president of operations. “But before we essentially tear the underbelly of the plane apart, panel by panel, we need some evidence that the cat is alive and actually there.”

The plane was searched at Kennedy Airport on Friday morning and again at San Juan, Puerto Rico, in the afternoon. “No one reported hearing, seeing or smelling anything,” he said.

Another search for the cat was to be conducted Friday night after the aircraft returned to New York, Lacey said.

But Timmel was not consoled.

“The bottom line is once Tabitha was discovered missing, the plane should have never been allowed to fly off,” said Timmel, an actress, sitting in an empty apartment, where she still is awaiting her furniture after having moved from New York.

She arrived Thursday aboard Tower Air Flight 21 with two pet cats: Tabitha and the cat’s sister, Pandora, which had shared the same portable cage during the flight.

Her troubles began after an airline employee delivered the cage with Pandora, but without Tabitha, once the plane was on the ground in Los Angeles.

She said airline personnel escorted her into the plane’s cargo area in the hopes that Tabitha--whom ground workers had tried to coax out with food--might respond to Timmel’s calls.

“Then, a supervisor with a walkie-talkie came over and essentially said, ‘That’s it.’ It’s as if they decided my cat wasn’t very important,” Timmel said.

Lacey said the airline will continue to try to find the animal.

He said the cat may still turn up after several days of flying across the continent and to the Caribbean.

Several years ago, the airline found a cat that had been aboard one of its jets for 10 days, during which it made several trips between New York and Israel. “There’s precedent for hope,” he said.