WASHINGTON, April 24, 2009
FAA: Bird Strikes Way Up At Big Airports
Incidents More Than Double Since 2000; Denver, Houston, Chicago O'Hare And JFK Report Most Wildlife Strikes
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The FAA list of wildlife strikes, published on the Internet, details more than 112,387 incidents (101,995 civil and 10,392 military) since 1990, reports CBS News producer Carter Yang. The incidents involved 460 species of birds and other various animals such as deer and cows.
Of the 112,387 incidents, 3,001 or 2.67 percent caused “substantial damage” to the aircraft, Yang reports.
There were 28 cases since 2000 in which a collision with a bird or other animal such as a deer on a runway was so severe that the aircraft was considered destroyed.
The total number of reported strikes rose from 2,074 (the lowest number on record) in 1990 to 9,897 (the worst year on record) in 2007. Last year, 2008, the number dropped to 8,758, Yang reports.
But even the FAA estimates that its voluntary reporting system captures only about 20 percent of all wildlife strikes and some airports and airlines do a better job of reporting than others.
"The numbers you see today, multiply them by five and you've got over half a million bird strikes a year," aviation expert Peter Goelz told CBS News national correspondent Jim Axelrod. "Now, that's a large number."
There are more big birds in the air due to conservation efforts and quieter airplane engines don't scare them away like they used to, reports Axelrod.
Airport officials have tried everything from hi-tech radar to lower-tech chasing of birds away with falcons and collies. They've even tried smothering eggs with vegetable oil to prevent them from hatching, adds Axelrod.
Eleven people have died in airplane collisions with birds or deer since 1990, the data also show.
The data revealed one positive trend: strikes that caused major damage dropped noticeably in 2007 and 2008. In 2000, pilots reported 178 such strikes; in 2007 there were 125; and in the first 11 months of 2008, only 85. December 2008 numbers were not yet listed. There was no immediate explanation for the decrease from the FAA, although the agency tightened engine design standards in 2004 to better withstand bird strikes.
Yang reports that the top major U.S. airports with the most reported wildlife strike incidents were:
Kennedy, the nation's 6th busiest airport, is located amid wetlands that attract birds.
The first disclosure of the entire FAA bird strike database, including the first-ever release of the locations of strikes, occurred largely due to pressure after the dramatic ditching of a US Airways jet in the Hudson River after bird strikes knocked out both of its engines on Jan. 15. Days later, The Associated Press requested release of the database under the Freedom of Information Act.
All 155 people aboard survived when pilot Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger ditched the powerless jet into the Hudson without breaking it up. The most recent fatal bird-strike incident came in October 2007: A student and instructor pilot died when their small, twin-engine business plane crashed in Browerville, Minn., after it struck a Canada goose during a night training flight. That plane's left engine had been damaged by a bird strike the day before and was repaired the day of the fatal crash.
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Reports doubled at some of the nation's busiest airports, including New Orleans, Houston's Hobby, Kansas City, Orlando and Salt Lake City. Lovell Field, in Chattanooga, Tenn., registered the greatest increase in wildlife strikes, going from four reported incidents in 2000 to 55 in 2008 - a 1,275 percent increase.
While bird strikes have attracted a lot of attention, they are, of course, rare events. The vast majority of cases result in little or no aircraft damage.
Air Transport Association of America statementWildlife experts have said the population of some birds, particularly large ones like Canada geese, has been growing as more and more birds find the food to live near cities and airports year round rather than migrating.
All told, pilots reported striking at least 59,776 birds since 2000. The most common strike involved mourning doves; pilots reported hitting 2,291 between 2000 and 2008. Other airborne victims included gulls (2,186), European starlings (1,427) and American kestrels (1,422).
A single United Airlines 737 passenger jet suffered at least 29 minor collisions with birds and one accident involving a small deer - more than any other plane since 2000. In only one case was damage significant, when the jet climbed out of Philadelphia International Airport into a flock of gulls flying at 1,000 feet the night of Jan. 30, 2006. The pilot declared an emergency after at least one engine sucked in a large gull and began vibrating badly. No one was hurt, but the airline spent about $37,000 in repairs.
That same plane has experienced incidents in San Francisco; Salt Lake City; San Jose, Calif.; Houston; Denver; Toronto; New Orleans; Chicago and Spokane, Wash. Its most recent incident was weeks before Thanksgiving when it struck a single small bird during takeoff in Denver.
Since 2000, reported bird strikes have resulted in five fatalities and 93 injuries. The cost of repairs was estimated at more than $267 million in inflation-adjusted dollars, but many of the incident reports contained no estimate of the repair cost.
The largest trade association of U.S. airlines hastened to put the data into context.
"While bird strikes have attracted a lot of attention, they are, of course, rare events," the Air Transport Association of America said in a written statement. "The vast majority of cases result in little or no aircraft damage."
Among the reports that did contain a cost estimate, the most expensive strike occurred in 2001 in Troy, Ala., when the pilot of a Learjet was unable to avoid a white-tailed deer while landing. The plane veered off the runway and burst into flames, critically injuring the pilot and a passenger. The cost of repairs was estimated at $12 million. There are incidents in which larger planes reported damage but no estimate of the repair cost.
An overwhelming majority of reported strikes - nearly 16,000 - occurred on approach, the data showed. Another 20,000 were split nearly evenly among take-off, landing, and climbing. Only 19 occurred while the plane was parked; two of those resulted in damage.
White-tailed deer struck on runways caused more incidents of serious damage to planes since 1990 - at least 288 accidents - than any individual species of bird. Among birds, gulls, Canada geese, rock pigeons and turkey vultures were most frequently blamed for serious damage in cases where a species identification could be made.
The rarest of collisions occurred in Alaska: Twice planes hit caribou there - a private plane in 1993 and a business jet in 2005.
The FAA had long argued the public can't handle the full truth about bird strikes, so it withheld the names of specific airports and airlines involved while releasing only aggregated data. The agency said the public might use the data to "cast unfounded aspersions" on those who reported strikes and the airports and airlines in turn might turn in fewer voluntary reports.
This week, however, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood rejected a proposal quietly advanced by the FAA on March 19 to formally make the data exempt from public disclosure - even as other FAA officials were telling the AP it would soon get the records in response to its Freedom of Information Act request.
With President Barack Obama promising a more open government and releasing secret Bush administration legal memos about harsh interrogations of terrorism suspects, LaHood said he found it hard to justify the FAA's plan to withhold records about birds flying around airports.
© MMIX, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Add a Comment See all 13 Comments
- I would contest the statement that "Airport officials" have tried "high tech radars". The FAA and US airports have only tested non-proven, experimental systems and have yet to use or test the bird radars that are in operational use by the US Air Force, NASA, the Royal Air Force and overseas airports. The only bird radar at a US airport has never been "tactically" to provide real time birdstrike risk avoidance and was rejected by NASA as unusable for bird detection for space shuttle launches in 2006. The FAA has spent 9 years and over $4 million "researching" bird radars but has yet to test the working systems.
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- Cheap solution: get a bunch of Boy Scouts, give them some .22 caliber rifles, send them to the airports and let them try to earn their marksmenship merit badges. Bottom line: an airport ain't no place for a bird!
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- Airport officials can scare the birds if necessary. One airport up here uses shotguns loaded with noise charges to scare the bald eagles from the jet's flight path at the end of the runway. They also have to get the USCG cutter to move away from the fuel dock, since it's superstructure and antenna are also in the flight path. And...they have to roll the emergency crews every time the jet takes off or lands since the runway is officially too short. Anyway, there is a lot more than birds to worry about. If you must worry.
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- How about that! People are getting killed in bird ingestion related aircraft accidents because animal rights activists managed to scare airport officials and municipalities into not killing the birds. We should round up and kill the animal rights activists instead.
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- So the airplanes sustain damage and the airlines repair them. I pay these costs in my ticket charges. Still no big deal.
I've seen thousands of birds take off all at once under me while flying very low and it can be quite exciting until you get clear. Of course it was the plane that caused them to go airborn. This was aboard a commercial plane whose pilot wanted to show passengers a coastal rookery. It scared the pilot pretty good.
Yes_ABWH_Fan - So what if we "replace" destroyed wetlands? Old wetlands = birds. New wetlands = birds. No apparent net gain in birds. I assume that the destroyed wetlands are now the new runway, so the newly created wetlands are just relocating the birds to a new location. Hopefully one where they won't be bothered by planes. - Reply to this comment
- Ok ! Anybody wanna know how much it costs to repair a jet engine damaged from a bird? Or how many there have been in airline's shops? You would be surprised by the cost!! Ok who is hidding this info?
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- Airports = new development surrounding them. New development = new parking lots. New Parking Lots = mandated wetland replacement. New Wetlands = more birds!
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- With advances in the technology of aerodynamics, why can't an impenetrable screen be devised that won't interfere with the turbines, but prevent birds from flying into them? It's amazing that this problem has been around for so long, yet no viable way to stop the strikes has ever been designed or tried.
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- I fly several times a month and can sure live with a 0.5 person/year death rate due to animal/bird incidents. I am more concerned that big government likes to hide things from us all the time.
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- Ok, so how many more airplaines are in the air than 20 years ago? How many more hours are being flown than 20 years ago.
It is just like everything else, we humans invade an animals natural habitat and than wonder why they are there. It is just like if you moved to Africa and then wondered why there were lions there.
Who do we think we are. Move the animals (Birds) feeding grounds and they won't be there to hit. - Reply to this comment
- CBS has also changed the title of this story from "89,000 Bird Strikes" to "89,000 Animal Strikes".
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- I thought they had already decided not to publish the numbers, for fear of scaring the public?
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- Can anybody read between the lines of this story?
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