Bird-plane collisions may pass 10,000, a first

WASHINGTON (AP) — Reports of airplanes’ hitting birds and other wildlife surged last year, including serious accidents such as birds crashing through cockpits and crippling engines in flight, according to an Associated Press analysis of new government data. More than a dozen states across two migration routes from Minnesota to Texas have seen the highest increases.

“Birds and planes are fighting for airspace, and it’s getting increasingly crowded,” said Richard Dolbeer, an expert on bird-plane collisions who is advising the Federal Aviation Administration and the Agriculture Department.

The government’s tally for all bird strikes last year could reach or even exceed 10,000 for the first time — which would represent about 27 strikes every day. There were at least 57 cases in the first seven months of 2009 that caused serious damage and three in which planes and a corporate helicopter were destroyed by birds. At least eight people died, and an additional six were hurt.

The destroyed planes include the Airbus A320 that, with 155 passengers and crew, went into the Hudson a year ago this week after hitting a flock of Canada geese. No lives were lost in that dramatic river landing.

But when a Sikorsky helicopter crashed en route to an oil platform last January after hitting a red-tailed hawk near Morgan City, La., the two pilots and six of seven passengers were killed. The lone survivor was critically injured.

Why the increase in bird-strike reports?

Airports and airlines have become more diligent about reporting, said Mike Beiger, national coordinator for the airport wildlife hazards program at the Agriculture Department. Experts also blame increasing populations of large birds such as Canada geese that can knock out engines on passenger jets.

Reports of bird strikes through July have doubled in at least 17 states since 2005, including many along the Mississippi and central migratory flyways running across the central U.S. The 17 states are: Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Vermont, Wisconsin.

The surge in reports for 2009 — expected to be as much as 40 percent higher once the final accounting is in — comes in spite of government concerns that disclosing details about such strikes would discourage reports by airports and airlines out of worries about lost business. The previous high was 7,507 strikes in 2007.

Not all airports have been diligent. Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, for example, showed 46 strikes during the first seven months of 2008 but only 12 for the same period in 2009. When the AP asked about the decline, the airport said there were 28 strikes — not 12 — during that period in 2009, but the airport had neglected to report more than half of them.

Dolbeer, the government’s bird-strike expert, said a spate of serious collisions that took place miles away from airports was especially troubling.

On Nov. 4 over eastern Arizona, for instance, air-cargo pilot Roger Wutke had just begun a descent from 11,000 feet in his twin- engine Beechcraft turboprop when a western grebe — a 2-foot-long water bird — crashed through his windshield. The bird hit Wutke, knocking off his glasses, breaking his radio headset and splattering him in blood.

Unable to see out much of the shattered left windshield and unable to hear air-traffic controllers, Wutke still managed to land the plane safely.

Two days earlier, a Delta Air Lines jet en route from Phoenix to Salt Lake City with 65 passengers struck grebes at about 12,000 feet. The impact tore a 21-inch hole in the MD-90’s fuselage, forcing pilots to declare an emergency and return to Phoenix.

On Nov. 14, a Frontier Airlines Airbus A319 en route to Denver collided with a flock of snow geese at about 4,000 feet, forcing the shutdown of one engine. The other engine was also struck but didn’t lose power. The plane returned to Kansas City for an emergency landing.

In one case, according to the government reports, a bald eagle was sucked into the right engine of a United Airlines Boeing 757 that had just taken off from Denver International Airport and caused $14 million in damage. The plane, with 151 passengers and crew bound to San Francisco, returned to Denver.

Last month, a Continental Airlines Boeing 767 with 134 passengers struck birds after taking off from Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey, damaging one engine. The plane dumped 9,700 gallons of jet fuel over a warehouse district west of Newark before returning to the airport.

Denver recorded more bird strikes in the first seven months of 2009 than any other airport with 273, an increase over 223 during the same period in 2008.