Cheetah gets loose in plane's hold

A Delta baggage worker got the fright of her life when she opened a jetliner's cargo door and found a cheetah running loose amid the luggage.

Delta spokeswoman Betsy Talton said that two cheetahs were being flown in the cargo area of a passenger flight from Portland, Oregon, to Atlanta a day earlier when one escaped from its cage.

Talton said the airline summoned help from an Atlanta zoo. Experts rushed to a closed airport hangar and tranquillised both animals and took them back to the zoo.

Talton said the airline is now working to get the big cats back to their owners.

Both one-year-old female cheetahs were on their way from the Wildlife Safari Park in Winston, Oregon, to the Memphis Zoo in Tennessee, Memphis Zoo spokesman Drew Smith said.

He said the two cheetahs will stay a few days at the zoo in Atlanta until the Memphis Zoo gets a team together to fetch them.