Bird strikes an airplane

Industr y strikes are probably the second most crippling type of strike in aviation. However, bird strikes take the top spot, as they can seriously damage an aircraft. So, let us have a look at these road kills of the sky.

Twice a year birds migrate. In spring, most northern hemisphere birds will return to their usual spots between March and April and even into May. Once they detect that the days are getting shorter, they will take-off for warmer climates. But come September and be mostly completed by October they return again. Of course, climate change has pushed the start of migrations to be about a week earlier and the whole season of migration has extended as well.

You may not know this, but birds have been flying long before humans did. As such, they are loath to shake off this habit. That is why airplanes share the airspace with their feathered counterparts. The United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) data collected between 1990 and 2015 lists 177,269 wildlife (birds and terrestrial animals) impact on civil aircraft, whilst birds account for over 90% of these incidents. According to ICAO, there were 65,139 bird strikes between 2011 and 2014 and the number is expected to increase with better reporting techniques coming online.

Birds are usually encountered during take-off, landing or whilst the aircraft is rolling on the runway. Not equipped with jet engines, avian species don’t really get up to the typical cruising heights of commercial aircraft, therefore, according to ICAO, 90% of all bird strikes occur near airports. FAA claims that less than 8% of bird strikes happen above 900 meters and 61% occur at altitudes below 30 meters. This is of small consolation to an aircraft that ran into a vulture at 11 kilometres above the Ivory Coast, but that is a record-holding avian flight altitude for a reason. Also, birds seldom fly at night as much as you do, so most bird strikes occur during the daytime.

So, what happens when a plane strikes a bird? Usually, the forwardfacing parts of the plane, the nose, the cockpit, tail and wings suffer, along with the engines. For larger planes, basically all passenger airliners, the engines are the weakest points. There are enormous forces at work when the plane is taking off. While normally you could throw chickens at the blades of a turned off jet engine for hours before doing any damage, the physics of flight all but ensure that at least one blade will be misshapen, leading to a catastrophic failure and even loss of all engine power.

The engine doesn’t fall off, but the operation can still be interrupted. According to specialists that wrote about the subject, new advances in engine blade technologies make ingestion (that is what a bird strike is called if the bird gets into the engine through the blades) is less likely to damage the engine. According to statistics, 5% of ingestions result in having to replace the engine. Most often, these ingestions damage parts that can be replaced at the airport, albeit getting them

there might be a problem. An example was a British Airways Airbus A321-200N flying from Heathrow to Bucharest that had a bird strike while landing and the lengthy repairs lead it to be five hours late for the next flight.

Of course, birds can impact other parts of the plane. However, on passenger airliners, it’s highly unlikely that the bird will penetrate the windshields, which is more of an issue for smaller aircraft types. Still, you wouldn’t want to be flying around with a cracked windshield, so this will result in flight cancellations. Or, as it happened when a KLM crew taking off from Amsterdam reported seeing a lot of blood on the windshield.

Animals might also damage other components of the plane, like the pitot tube. This sensor tubes measures the speed of the plane and wasps nesting in one is believed to be the cause of the fatal Birgenair Flight 301 crash in 1996. In another case a Wizzair Airbus A321-200 taking off in Bucharest experienced a bird strike which lead to loss of weather radar function.

The issue of increased drone activity

Presently, airports face more than birds when it comes to aircraft strikes. Drones are increasingly becoming an issue, with almost monthly reports of airports grounding planes due to UAV sightings. Drones are dangerous in that they can be deliberately flown into planes and because some of their rigid components, especially the batteries that can cause damage beyond anything a bird can do.

Aside from safety concerns, bird strikes are very bad news if you hope to claim flight compensation money. Regulation (EC) 261/2004 considers bird strikes an exception, something the airlines cannot control. After all, the pilot can’t really honk the horn to make the bird get out of the way. In the end, even airports can only do so much, even if they try using triangular rotating mirrors on poles, hunting birds, specifically trained dogs, pyrotechnics, relocation, destroying the eggs and more to ensure your safety.

As the demand for air travel increases, we can expect an increase in bird strikes until the point where colony collapse disorder leads to bird die out. The compensation rules are unlikely to change. However, if your flight is delayed or cancelled not due to a bird strike, or if you experience overbooking, claim via Skycop. With a compensation of up to €600 on the line and no financial risks in the case of failure, it would be unwise not to!