Bird-Plane collisions may pass 10,000 for year

[Henk Voortwijs]

Reports of airplanes hitting birds and other wildlife
have soared since a stricken US Airways jet landed last year in New York's
Hudson River, and the government's tally for last year could reach or even
exceed 10,000 for the first time.
Serious accidents are climbing at a faster rate than minor incidents.
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, according to an analysis by The Associated Press of the
latest government figures available. At least eight people died, and six
more 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.
And there is no shortage of frightening reports of knocked-out engines and
emergency landings.
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. But experts also say populations of large birds
like Canada geese that can knock out engines on passenger jets have
increased.
"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 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. The government's estimate of as many as 10,000 for
2009 would represent about 27 strikes every day.
After US Airways Flight 1549 landed in the Hudson on Jan. 15, the AP asked
the government for its data, including details about more than 93,000
strikes since 1990. Even after the FAA agreed to turn over the records to the
AP, it quietly proposed a new federal rule to keep the information secret
until Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood intervened and ordered the release.
LaHood recently included the disclosure in a list of the department's
leading safety accomplishments for last year.
"Going public doesn't appear to have harmed it, and every indicator I have
is we have an increased industry awareness on the importance of reporting,"
said Kate Lang, FAA acting associate administrator for airports, in an
interview.
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.
A spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, John Kelly,
said the reporting failure was an oversight and the airport would
immediately file the missing incidents. The authority manages the airport, which
last year had one of the highest rates of bird strikes in the country.
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 two-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.
"I don't know how I did it," Wutke, 26, said in an interview. "It was
pretty rough."
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.
The FAA has mostly focused on keeping birds away from airports, where most
strikes take place. But grebes and snow geese are migratory birds and were
flying miles away from airports when these collisions took place - evidence
that more attention is needed to reduce the threat of wildlife strikes
away from airports, Dolbeer said.
The FAA said it is cracking down on airports that fail to complete required
studies of risks from birds. The agency identified 91 airports that should
have conducted formal assessments but didn't, Lang said. It's also testing
different bird-detecting radars, which enable workers to find birds and
chase them away.
Some airports are replacing shrubbery that attracts birds and insects that
other birds eat. In some cases, airports bring in predatory hawks to chase
away flocks of smaller birds.
In the first seven months of 2009 there were 4,671 wildlife strikes
reported in the government's data, an increase of 22 percent over the same period
in 2008. More serious accidents increased over the same period by 36
percent. Officials are still manually adding paper reports for the second half of
the year, and they said online reports indicate an even larger increase
over that period.
The database includes collisions with all wildlife - deer and coyotes on
runways, for example - but historically, 98 percent of reported incidents
involve birds.
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.
The data showed 218 airports reported fewer strikes during the first seven
months of 2009, but 351 airports reported more strikes; 59 reported no
change from the same period the previous year.
Among the airports reporting the largest increases: Buffalo-Niagara
International went from 22 during the first seven months of 2008 to 46 in the
first seven months of 2009; George Bush Intercontinental in Houston jumped from
20 to 64 over the same period; Detroit Metro Airport went from 49 to 91,
Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall went from 35 to 52 and
Orlando International in Florida went from 39 to 59.
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. It is spending more money and has hired a second biologist. The airport
is on 52 square miles of land, making it the largest in the nation, and is
surrounded by open agricultural areas. Local officials last year approved
a landfill near the airport despite objections that the dump would attract
birds.
The FAA also approved New York's plans for a trash transfer station about
700 yards from the end of a LaGuardia Airport runway - the same airport used
by US Airways Flight 1549 moments before it struck geese. In both cases
local officials said the trash facilities could be managed so they wouldn't
attract birds.
Among airports reporting declines, the data showed 23 strikes at Tampa
International during the first seven months of 2008 but only 10 for the same
period in 2009. The figures listed 73 at Cleveland Hopkins International in
2008 but only 53 for the same period in 2009. Both airports said the figures
were accurate.
The Cleveland airport has worked to aggressively harass birds and reduce
food sources, spokeswoman Jackie Mayo said. The Tampa airport also was
chasing away birds and attributed part of its decline to fewer flights, said
Robert Burr, the airport's operations director. Air traffic has been down
across the country due to the sour economy.
Bird strike reporting to the National Wildlife Strike Database is voluntary
even though the National Transportation Safety Board recommended in 1999
that FAA make it mandatory.

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