Pigs can't fly on US Airways

© AFP Photo / Karl-Josef Hildenbrand

A woman boarded a flight in Connecticut with a 70-pound pig she claimed was for "emotional support." But after the porky pet got totally out of hand, the odd couple was forced to disembark.

The woman brought the animal onto a US Airways flight on Wednesday, apparently having had no trouble taking it through customs.

A professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Jonathan Skolnik, who was also a passenger on the flight, told ABC News of his shock after initially thinking the large animal was a duffel bag.

"But it turns out it wasn't a duffel bag. We could smell it and it was a pig on a leash," he said. "She tethered it to the arm rest next to me and started to deal with her stuff, but the pig was walking back and forth.

"I was terrified, because I was thinking I'm gonna be on the plane with the pig," Snolnik added, saying he guessed the pig weighed between 50 and 70 pounds.

The woman and the animal were forced to disembark - with pictures circulating on social media showing the woman managed to carry the animal off on her left shoulder.

This is not the first time that people have attempted to push boundaries with emotional support animals.

In October, Patricia Marx attempted to claim a series of "emotional support animals"in unusual situations, starting small with a turtle, and subsequently claiming an "emotional support turkey," an "emotional support alpaca," and then, as in the recent case in Connecticut, a pig.

"How is that even allowed?" Marx heard a peeved woman behind her question. Apparently the condition was as long as the pig sat on Marx's lap.

Emotional support animals are designed to provide a degree of therapeutic benefit to their owners, engendering feelings of security and calm. They can within reason be any animal, and owners must have a verifiable ailment according to The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which encompasses a wide range of accepted phobias, anxiety disorders and schizophrenia.

Psychiatric service dogs have a legal categorization of their own and are specifically trained to cope with the demands of people suffering with psychiatric ailments such as PTSD.