For pilots, collisions with birds have been a very real threat almost since the advent of airplane flight. The first recorded instance of a bird strike was reported in 1905 by the Wright brothers when Orville Wright struck and killed a bird that was part of a flock he was chasing over a cornfield in Dayton, Ohio. While the collision caused no damage to the aircraft or the pilot, other bird strikes have been much more catastrophic.
Calbraith Rogers, the first person to fly across the continental United States, was also the first person to die as a result of a bird strike, after a seagull struck the plane he was piloting causing it to crash into the California surf in 1912. More recently, in 1996, a Belgian Air Force plane struck a flock of birds during its approach and crashed short of a runway in Eindhoven, Netherlands, killing 34 crew and passengers.
Bird strikes are thought to have played a significant role in at least five large jet airliner accidents over the last 30 years and over 200 people have been killed as a result of bird strikes since 1988. Statistically, there is a 25% chance that during the next 10 years a fatal bird strike involving a large airliner will occur in North America.
The actual impact of bird strikes is difficult to determine, however. More than 56,000 bird strikes to civil aircraft were reported to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) from 1990-2004 but experts believe that this is only 20% of the actual number. Suffice to say, no matter their actual number, bird strikes can be extremely devastating. A 12-pound goose hitting an airplane taking off at 150 miles per hour generates the same force as a 1,000 pound weight dropped from a height of 10 feet. Estimates place the costs of these collisions with birds and other wildlife to commercial and military aviation worldwide at close to $1 billion each year from lost and damaged aircraft, flight delays, and lost time while aircraft are out of service for repair or inspection. The U.S. Air Force alone counted more than 4,600 wildlife strikes to its aircraft in 2004, resulting in a cost of more than $53 million.
Unfortunately the problem is not going away. According to the Bird Strike Committee USA, an organization made up of members of the FAA, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Department of Defense and the aviation industry, bird populations are on the rise. The Canadian goose population in North America grew from 1 million in 1990 to 3.6 million in 2003. Starlings, otherwise known as “feathered bullets” because of their high body density, numbered 60 when they were introduced to North America in 1890. Today, they are one of the most abundant birds on the continent with a population reaching 150 million. An increasing bird population means that aggressive prevention efforts need to be considered.
On top of this, there is usually a legal obligation to prevent bird strikes. For example, the Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority recently warned regional airport operators that they need to reduce the risk of bird strikes or they could face legal action. More than 1,300 bird strike incidents are reported in Australia each year. And in February, a French court ruled that the government was responsible for keeping runways clear of wildlife and had to pay a total of 3 million euros to Air France and five insurance companies after a bird strike incident in Marseille.
Complicating the situation is that most bird strikes involve federally protected species (in the United States protection for many species is afforded under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918) so simply killing all birds that threaten airports is not an option. Prevention efforts, as a result, must be more creative.
Many airports employ dogs or birds of prey to keep their airfields clear—Monty the falcon patrols the skies at the Maguire Air Force base in New Jersey while Tweeny the sheepdog chases away flocks at Johannesburg International Airport in South Africa. The Royal New Zealand Air Force base at Ohakea has found some success in frightening birds away by using ATVs. Many companies offer sound or gas cannons and pyrotechnic products to deter bird flocks.
While these methods will chase birds away, the effect is usually temporary however, as the birds generally return to what attracted them to the airport in the first place—the large expanses of grass that serve as a food source. Paving the fields is too expensive, so the airport habitat needs to be modified other ways. Airports can use artificial turf or even go so far as to plant special grasses that birds find unpalatable. A new strain of fungus-laden grass developed by Chris Pennell of New Zealand’s AgResearch actually makes birds sick when they eat it. The grass has proved to be successful in trials at keeping birds away and will soon be installed in New Zealand’s Christchurch International Airport to test its real-world effectiveness.
Morgan O’Rourke is RM's managing editor.
