Free Republic

"..... collision with a large bird....... the airline is still investigating the cause of the incident......"

WASHINGTON – Aircraft design standards aren't tough enough for planes to withstand collisions with growing numbers of large birds, safety investigators examining an Oklahoma crash that killed five men said Tuesday. The Federal Aviation Administration requires the bodies of commercial aircraft to withstand a collision with a bird weighing 4 pounds or 8 pounds depending upon the section of the plane — standards that haven't been updated since the 1970s, investigators told the National Transportation Safety Board. An FAA advisory committee spent 10 years examining whether the standards should be updated and then disbanded without reaching a conclusion, investigators said....

New York City plans to trap and kill as many as 2,000 Canada geese this summer in an attempt to avoid the type of collision that caused an airliner to ditch in the Hudson River.

Twenty times a day, pilots nationwide report that birds have hit their airplanes, according to a national data base of wildlife strikes made public on Friday by the Federal Aviation Administration. Denver International Airport had the highest number of reported bird strikes this decade — 2,090 — according to the database. Nationwide, the most common bird species involved in the collisions was the mourning dove.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Aviation Administration has made good on its promise to release for the first time, records of where and when airplanes have struck birds over the last 19 years. The disclosures come thanks largely to pressure after the dramatic ditching of a US Airways jet in the Hudson River after bird strikes knocked out both its engines in January.

12/20/2007 - BALAD AIR BASE, Iraq (AFPN) -- With the help of volunteers from around the base, the 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing flight safety office reduced the number of bird strikes on aircraft by 30 percent here in November. They accomplished this through the Bird Aircraft Strike Hazard program, which uses awareness and proactivity to reduce the number of bird-strike threats against aviation assets. "We are here preserving the Air Force's combat capabilities," said Master Sgt. Brian Saunders, a flight safety office member." Last year alone $42 million in damage was done to Air Force aircraft from bird strikes." Helping...