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My experience with birdstrikes is limited to military aircraft where the pilot can eject, but in a majority of birdstrikes the plane is destroyed.

Back in the '60s the USAF developed a "chicken-cannon", to test windsheilds by shooting supermarket chickens at sub-sonic & near sonic speeds.

Story has it the Brits borrowed one of these to test their own designs, and discovered major failures i.e. windsheild shattered, bird ripping out the pilot seat, etc.
When asking the USAF about it; the Americans responded: "thaw the chicken first".

Chicken-cannon ? True
Frozen chickens ? i don't know, but it does make for a good story.

Birdstrikes are a concern for pilots.

How it relates to yesterdays crash, umm, it's a "possible", but there are other "possibles", also.

Upon further research I have found that I was mistaken in that the majority of birdstrikes, while often causing extensive damage, do not destroy the aircraft in question.

However, I have direct knowledge of 2 aircraft (one F/A-18 and one F-14) that suffered enough damage to cause the pilot (both the pilot and gunner in the case of the Tomcat) to eject. And since those are the only two birdstrikes I have direct knowledge of, I made the incorrect assumption that the majority of birdstrikes destroy the aircraft.