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Flight 1549 reminds us that we’re not the only creatures that travel in the sky... Shortly after Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger took off from New York’s LaGuardia Airport on January 15, 2009, with 154 passengers and crew, two 8-pound geese flew into each of the plane’s twin engines.
Suddenly both engines weren’t working, and he faced a gut-wrenching decision. He had to choose between trying to reach an airport runway or attempting a daring water landing. Captain Sullenberger aimed for the Hudson River, which investigators eventually said was the only choice he could have made that would have saved the plane and its passengers.
It raised awareness about aircraft bird strikes and prompted National Transportation Safety Board investigators to warn airports “to take action to mitigate wildlife hazards before a dangerous event occurs.”
From 1990 to 2016, the annual number of reported bird strikes in the US increased from 1,850 to 13,408, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. That’s up more than 700%. Globally, from 2008-2015, the International Civil Aviation Organization said nearly 98,000 bird strikes were reported in 105 nations. The estimated cost of all aviation bird strikes, according to the European Space Agency, is more than $1 billion a year.
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Read the whole bird-strike article “Preventing Another ‘Miracle On The Hudson’ Emergency”
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