– and insects are plentiful and easily hunted. Unfortunately, such large birds tend to hang out at or near airports, where lots of small mammals – field mice, rabbits, small birds, etc. Planes today, even small private piston-engine aircraft, are built to withstand such events.īut larger birds – those in the raptor class – can do significant damage to a plane’s wings or, worse, bend or break jet engine fan blades, causing those engines to shut down in flight. That’s because most such strikes involve small birds, and only one or two of them at that. In fact, it’s far more common for pilots to be completely unaware that their plane was struck by birds until they’ve landed and spot the damage upon inspection. In truth, most bird strikes don’t result in “Miracle On The Hudson”-type piloting heroics. Thanks to the skills and training of the crew, and to the impromptu rescue efforts of boat operators on the Hudson River, no one died even though the plane had to ditch in the icy river when both engines, heavily damaged by the ingestion of birds, could not be restarted. Airways Flight 1549 flew through a flock of Canadian geese immediately after taking off from New York’s LaGuardia Airport. Yet one of the most famous aircraft incidents in history occurred in 2009 when U.S. Statistically that barely registers because there were between 35 million and 40 million commercial airline flights during each of those years, plus untold hundreds of thousands of flights each year aboard private aircraft. Another 279 people were injured during such incidents during that same period. Data from the Federal Aviation Administration show that between 19 there were 25 human fatalities attributed to wildlife strikes (including on-runway collisions with animals such as deer) involving U.S. (Getty Images)Ĭatastrophic low level bird strikes, though statistically rare, are among the most threatening events any airplane can encounter. surviving your next takeoff or landing? Some European researchers think so. That’s when they are in close proximity to the ground, meaning there’s little room or time for pilots to recover from flight upsets or engine failures caused by bird strikes.Ĭould these silly Googly Eyes, which are all the rage this Halloween season, be the key to your. That’s where such feathers-and-blood birds are most likely to encounter much larger metal birds with flesh-and-blood humans aboard when those airplanes are going through the most risky stages of flight. The academics, from the National Center for Scientific Research, an arm of the French Ministry of Education and Research, and from the University of Rennes 1 in Rennes, France, took a serious look at how best to scare away potentially deadly, crash-causing birds from areas surrounding private and commercial airfields. So, if you’re a passenger – or a pilot or crew member – aboard an airplane trying to take off or land – Googly Eyes are, well, a sight for sore eyes.Ī team of European researchers recently issued a paper stating that Googly Eyes painted on low-mounted placards near runways – or on airplanes taking off and landing - are most effective in scaring off the kind of big birds that can do damage to low-flying aircraft or, in rare and extreme cases, bring down anything from a little Cessna to a huge Airbus. In response, the birds flee the area, reducing or eliminating the possibility of a potentially dangerous plane-bird collision. Their especially acute eyesight can be used against them by tricking them into “seeing” a large, rapidly approaching predator that does not, in fact, actually exist. Eagles, hawks, buzzards, harriers, kites, ospreys, falcons and vultures are some of the most commons types of diurnal raptors. Well, it is if you if you happen to be a bird – or more specifically a diurnal raptor, which is the fancy scientific name for birds of prey that use their keen eyesight to hunt for insects or small animals to eat during daylight hours. Just in time for Halloween a team of European researchers have confirmed that the most frightening thing you can see is a pair of “Googly Eyes.” But the slaughter has come at great expense and included many smaller species experts say are unlikely to cause a disaster. Nearly a decade later thousands of birds have been killed at New York City airports to avoid more strikes. aviation history is the so-called "Miracle on the Hudson" event involved US Airways Flight 1549 on Jan. The most well-known and memorable incident involving a catastrophic bird strike in commercial.
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