Bird crashes into passenger plane
A United Airlines plane had a large hole in the nose after colliding with a bird.
The nose of the Boeing 737 was punctured by a bird. Photo: ABC News
Flight 1475 from Dallas/Ft Worth landed safely at Denver International Airport at 9:09 a.m. yesterday after the incident. All 151 passengers on board were unharmed, United Airlines spokeswoman Christen David told ABC News.
However, the photos show the nose of the Boeing 737 plane was crushed and had a huge hole in it. The bird recovered from the plane will be analyzed by experts at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington to determine its species.
Paul Eschenfelder, a professor at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University, said that today, planes must be designed and tested to prove that they are capable of supporting a 2 kg bird without endangering the people inside.
He also added that no aircraft engine is currently designed or manufactured to be able to "survive" a collision with a bird weighing between 4 and 7 kg.
One of the world's most famous bird-plane collisions occurred in New York in 2009, when a passenger plane was hit by a bird, causing engine damage. The pilot landed the plane in the middle of the Hudson River. All passengers were safe after rescue boats rushed to the "landing" area.
The number of aircraft-animal strikes in the United States has been increasing every year, from 1,793 in 1990 to more than 9,600 in 2010. Of those, 97.2 percent involved birds, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Seventy percent of the strikes occurred when the plane was flying at an altitude of less than 500 feet.
Birdstrike.org estimates that animal strikes cost the U.S. military and civilian aviation industry more than $600 million annually. According to the organization, more than 200 people have died worldwide from animal strikes since 1988.
According to Vnexpress - NT
