(Photo: Connie Coleman/Getty Images)A passenger jet hits a couple of geese and crashes into the Hudson River. It sounds simple, but it’s not. As collisions between planes and birds rise, there is a debate over the cause of the increase and a race to find ways to prevent catastrophe. Bruce Barcott and Jonathan Rosen, authors who have both written books on birds, put “bird strikes” in environmental and historical perspective.
The Role of Suburban Sprawl
Bruce Barcott, the author of “The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw, “ newly published in paperback.
Early reports attributed yesterday’s crash of a US Airways jet on the Hudson River to birds striking the plane’s engines. If that turns out to be true, it won’t come as a shock to anyone in the aviation industry. The clear blue yonder isn’t clear. It’s full of birds. And when airplanes run into them, the results can be catastrophic.
Airplane bird strikes have increased steadily for the past 17 years. According to F.A.A. statistics, airplanes struck 1,738 birds in 1990. That number had climbed to 7,439 by 2007. There’s a certain amount of distortion in that data: more planes are in the sky today, and pilots and ground crews are more diligent about voluntarily reporting strikes. But here’s the telling stat: Strikes per 10,000 movements of aircraft. It’s the industry’s bird strike batting average. In 1990 it was 0.53, or one strike per every 20,000 flights. By 2007 it had tripled to 1.75.
What’s causing the increase? Some industry officials have pointed to the success of the conservation movement. “There are a lot more big birds than there were 40 years ago, and they’re hitting aircraft with greater frequency,” Steve Predmore, chief safety officer at JetBlue Airways, told a gathering of industry experts in 2006.
“Canada geese, turkey vultures, starlings, gulls — these are the species the rest of us promote with bulldozers, landfills, roads, and lawns.”
Well, yes and no. The decline of once common songbirds has been well documented. Over the past 40 years the U.S. populations of bobwhites, Eastern meadowlarks and 18 other species have dropped by more than half. At the same time larger birds like turkey vultures, gulls, pigeons and Canada geese have thrived. There’s no mystery in the disparity. The losing species live in forests, meadows and farmland, which are being destroyed by development. We traded the meadowlark for more houses and big-box stores. The gaining species are terrifically adapted to the human landscape. Turkey vultures dine on roadkill. Gulls and pigeons eat our garbage. To a Canada goose, every golf course is a grassy smorgasbord.
Not coincidentally, those well-adapted birds are the ones having the most run-ins with the planes. Canada and snow geese have caused $64 million in damage to aircraft over the past 18 years. Right below them on the money list are gulls, pigeons, and vultures. New York’s most famous bird strike — before yesterday — happened in 1975 when a DC-10 sucked a flock of seagulls into its engine during takeoff. The passengers and crew escaped, but the plane burned to the ground. In 1995, an Air Force AWACS plane struck a flock of Canada geese at Elmendorf Air Force Base near Anchorage, Alaska, and crashed, killing all 24 aboard.
I’ve spent a fair amount of time with bird strike experts and airport officials over the past few months, following my own curiosity about this strange intersection between the human and avian world. I can tell you that a small corps of very smart professionals out there are devising ingenious ways to keep mallards and MD-80s from meeting. They use Doppler radar that, as one expert told me, “measures the amount of meat in the air.” They let mature red-tailed hawks, which know how to stay away from planes, keep nests near runways to scare less intelligent species (hello, gulls!) out of the area. They can cut grass to a certain height to dissuade starlings from foraging on runway infields (amazing stuff — messes with their visual interflock communication).
What they can’t do, though, is halt the inexorable rise of the birds most dangerous to airplanes. Canada geese, turkey vultures, starlings, gulls — these are the species the rest of us promote with bulldozers, landfills, roads, and lawns. They’ve become part of the biological weather that follows human development in America. We can take measures to prevent them from flocking to airports. But we shouldn’t be surprised when they get in our way. We’re the ones who raised them.
Avian and Human Competition
Jonathan Rosen, the editorial editor of Nextbook, is the author, most recently, of “The Life of the Skies: Birding at the End of Nature,” newly published in paperback.
About 10 years ago I became interested in falconry and went out to J.F.K. to talk to the men who flew falcons to scare off the flocks of birds around the airport — terns and seagulls and starlings — in an effort to prevent the sort of disaster narrowly averted when US Airways Flight 1459 had both engines knocked out by geese just after takeoff at La Guardia. There were also some sonic cannons that shot at timed intervals. For a modern airport, the whole thing had the feel of a renaissance fortification, what with the hooded falcons and the booming cannons.
Obviously, airports have not yet mastered the art of keeping the skies free of avian competition. Unless they kill everything in the area it’s hard to imagine how they can — though the skill of the US Airways captain and his crew, and the rescuers on the ground, heroically prevented loss of life. In case we needed it, the accident at La Guardia highlights as dramatically as possible the collision of the natural world and the human world.
“Bird strikes — sometimes referred to as BASH, for Bird Aircraft Strike Hazard — are as old as the Wright brothers.”
Bird strikes — sometimes referred to as BASH, for Bird Aircraft Strike Hazard — are as old as the Wright brothers. In 1905, Orville Wright noted in his diary that on a test flight he “chased a flock of birds for two rounds and killed one which ultimately fell on top of the upper surface and after a time fell off….” In 1912 the first fatality was reported when Calbraith Rogers, who the year before had become famous flying from Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn to Long Beach, Calif., and earned what turned out to be the ironic nickname “the Birdman,” crashed into the Pacific after flying his biplane into a flock of birds.
Today, bird strikes are on the rise, from 1,500 in 1990 to 8,000 last year, according to Scientific American. This in part has to do with the comeback of certain birds, like the Canada goose, which, moving in the opposite direction of many birds, went from near extinction in the early 1900s to a population of nearly four million today, thanks in part to environmental programs put in place in the 1960s and 1970s.
Increased air traffic has also increased bird strikes and so, according to some, have quieter airplanes. The great pleasure of urban birding – the intersection of migratory birds, following ancient flight paths, with human habitation – has a perilous side. I may love seeing a great blue heron flying over Manhattan, but I do not want one sucked into the engine of my plane, which happened to a Boeing 757 in 2007, though the plane landed safely.
In general, flying is a lot safer for humans than birds. Half of all migratory birds die each spring and though there are plenty of natural causes — strong winds, scarce food, predators — there are plenty of man-made causes too, like tall buildings and illuminated skylines. Since 1988, some 219 people have been killed worldwide as a result of “wildlife strikes” — primarily birds are the culprit. That, obviously, is 219 too many, and given the nearly averted disaster in New York, it is urgent that we find a solution.
Right now we use a combination of elements: habitat management (not always easy when an airport like J.F.K. is a stone’s throw away from the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge); harassing birds at the airport — with falcons and dogs to flashing lights; and “bird control,” killing or moving birds when necessary. Richard Dolbeer, a wildlife biologist, recently outlined for Scientific American various projects not yet operational that are in the works including ultraviolet reflecting paint and bird-detecting radar that would help pilots to steer around the birds.
We are long past arguments that if we were meant to fly God would have given us wings. And much as I am a bird watcher and bird lover, I can tolerate euthanized starlings and Canada geese if it keeps airline passengers safe. But it would be wrong to vilify the hapless birds that are simply filling the skies that until a mere hundred years ago belonged to them alone.
We have reached the moment in our civilization when the technology that endangers the wild world is necessary to save it — much in the same way that the Florida Everglades, destroyed 100 years ago by the Army Corps of Engineers, is in part maintained by pumps and sluices that are today constructed by the Army Corps of Engineers. The Wright brothers developed their airplane in part by studying — like Leonardo five hundred years before — the flight of birds. For the sake of human life, and for the sake of our partnership with the natural world that produced us, we are obligated to return the favor. This week shows us how urgent the matter is.
From 1 to 25 of 62 Comments
The explosion in the Canada goose population has made them into a public nuisance, and now a public menace. I say it’s Canada goose season! Lift the hunting restrictions on them. They should be delicious.
— pragmatistGreat piece, thanks!
— JSThis is ridiculous. Yes we have created an environment that permits unfettered multiplication of the Canada geese (a similar situation exists for deer and car accidents). Lets solve the problem by significant Canada geese population reduction using any means. To all the lawyers, don’t go against USAir, but target the people responsible for the crash, the “Coalition to Prevent the Destruction of Canada Geese” , a group based in New York that advocates the protection of urban Canada geese from being killed. “Google” them!
— MarcelI’m sure everyone has thought of this, but can’t engines be fitted with outward-facing (convex) conical mesh screens that deflect the birds from entering the engines? They might get stuck on the screen, but wouldn’t go into the turbine blades.
It seems to me that the expense of that would be worth it, if the frequency of these accidents is rising.
Just a thought.
— Mike FenderIf men were meant to fly, we would have been born with wings! Perhaps they should design airplanes with flapping wings instead of jet engines? That would solve the problem for sure.
Seriously though - a couple of interesting articles on FOD, bird strikes and jet engines here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_object_damage
— Jojohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird_strike
Perhaps some of Pale Male’s descendants ( the famous NYC Central Park red tailed hawk ) will move to LGA or JFK. Are there any hawk appropriate nesting sites? Also rethink ‘trap neuter and release ‘for the airport cats. Baby gulls are better than canned cat food.
— LeewardAl Qaeda trained these suicide birds with knowledge that the plane would ditch in the water exactly where Al Qaeda-trained suicide fish would complete the destruction.
— Dr Bob“Canada and snow geese have caused $64 million in damage to aircraft over the past 18 years.” - Wow, I did realize the Canadians were working together with snow geese to sabotage our airplanes.
— DanielVery true, although the phrase “bird-strike” and “geese have caused $64 million in damage to aircraft” still carry the implication that the birds are somehow hitting the aircraft, where in fact the planes are moving at many times the speed of the birds. Saying that geese cause the damage is like saying the tree jumped in front of the car.
— Dan QuixoteWe should not forget the Health Hazards from exposure to Canada Geese. The rising numbers of geese increase the risk for a disease known as Bird Fancier disease a/k/a Hypersensitivity Pneumonitis. A serious lung disease that is on the rise. With 7.5 million Canada Geese around, we have no choice but to ignore the animal activists and work in reducing the numbers.The average goose lives for over 35 years. the reproduce from age 1 year. See the DFW report. We must act now
— John SmithAs if it were uncommon I heard reports that owing to size or flight density, these birds were visible on radar. Maybe going forward, the observation will become a reason for controllers to take some sort of affirmative action when there are large numbers in the airport area.
— Jeff SutterIt must be possible to place some kind of grid in front of the engines to prevent birds coming into the airintake.
— CarlI suspect that airplane bird-strikes with geese occur more frequently at certain times of year and under certain weather conditions. In the past week, I’ve seen lots of geese flying over and flying high - due in part to the severe cold weather coming out of the north.
You could compare the situation with deer. The greatest number of deer-strikes with automobiles occur the first hunting weekend of November.
— Margaret2We’re the one who raised them? Leave me out of it. It’s the people who want big families, and big houses, and big toys, and the people who like clear cutting trees..
— newagebluesIs it not possible or feasible to install screens over these engines to let the air in but keep the birds from striking the engine fan blades? Being a layman, I just don’t know.
— Douglas PolingHey– I thought it was a federal crime to hurt or interfere with a Canada Goose. Aren’t they protected by treaty. Somehow I remember reading that the last people prosecuted for interfering with Canada geese were golf course groundskeepers who got tired of cleaning up their poop. Apparently, not only are we taking severe measures to protect them from danger from humans, but we are actually acting to increase their number. This must be the conservationists’ biggest victory.
— Jeff FThank you for you article.
— D. ArmstrongAirports and some species of birds other than Red-tailed Hawks can coexist. Our small local airport leaves areas adjacent to the runways unmowed in May, June and July as long as safety is not compromised. This provides much needed breeding habitat for grassland bird species like Bobolink, Grasshopper Sparrow and occasionally, a Henslow’s Sparrow or two. It also keeps Canada geese off the grass around runways as they are not interested in feeding in tall grasses. The nesting passerines are no problem for the small planes that use the airport.
PS….
— LeewardFor LGA/JFK nests of ubiquitous/non threatened species such as gulls and Canada Geese…manually OIL THE EGGS, it stops airflow through the shell and kills the embryo.
Once migratory and almost threatened, Canada Geese have now become year round residents and pests.
There’s something to be said for animal rights here. Geese, gulls and other birds have been flying our skies much longer than man made aircraft. To say we should just kill them off is incredibly simplistic and arrogant. It’s the same case with car-deer collisions. You could say it’s an overpopulation of deer — or you could say it’s an overpopulation of cars and humans.
— JeffI agree with Carl that a screen type of device, similar to mosquito netting (the metallurgists certainly have a strong material that can be used) would help to prevent this type of accident in the future.
— FredI’m surprised Bush hasn’t made outlawing birds his last big humanitarian act.
— inland JimI think this points up the lack of border security that allows these refugees from Canada to come into this country without documentation, pollute our verdent golf courses at will and threaten our already suffering airline industry.
— spikethedogCanada should be held accountable for this but I suppose Secretary Clinton will just turn a deaf ear to the big goose problem and blame it on Bush.
How hard could it be to design a bird screen, to be
— a.mayplaced in front of the jet intake opening?
For those wondering why the engines don’t have screens, grids or mesh in front of them, there are several reasons. They would disrupt the smooth flow of air into the engines, decreasing thrust and increasing drag. If they were strong enough to stand up to hitting a large bird at 200 knots, they would merely strain the bird into smaller parts before feeding it to the compressor. If they were not strong enough, they would feed pieces of metal into the engine along with the bird parts. If the rotor and stator blades of the compressor are strong enough to withstand the bird parts, then they will purée those parts before feeding them to the combustion chamber, where the disruption to the airflow will more than likely cause a flameout. A restart would depend on what kind of damage the rest of the engine sustained. In the end, you would have a less powerful engine which was subject to pretty much the same vulnerabilities to bird strikes as the current ones.
— Chris in WAWell said Jeff 17. Some people seem to think that because we humans are at the “top of the food chain”, that we should be able to live our lives however we see fit, and to hell with all those other species out there that may have to suffer as a result! So, so sad….
— akira