CAN A BIRD STRIKE CAUSE A PLANE TO CRASH?

Bird strike is actually the collision between the birds and the man made vehicles especially aircrafts.

this term is also used for bird collisions between the power lines, turbines ,windmills.

Bird strikes are one of the major threat to flight safety but the number of accidents involving is low.

Birds do hit the planes everyday and most of them don't cause major damage to the aircraft.Bird strikes usually happen during the take off and landing or by low altitude flying.

Most of the accidents occur when the collision occurs between the windshield of the plane and also when the birds are sucked into the Engines of the aircraft.

WHAT DOES IT CAUSE TO A JET ENGINE?

Jet Engine ingestion is extremely serious due to the rotation speed of the engine and engine design.as the bird strikes the fan blade the blade can be displaced into another and so on causing a cascading failure.Jet Engines are more vulnerable during the takeoff phase,when the engine is turning at a very high speed and the plane is at low altitude where birds are commonly found

COUNTERMEASURES

There are mainly 3 approaches to reduce the bird strike.

1. Bird resistant aircraft designs

Most common large commercial jet engine include design features that can shut down after the ingesting a bird of weight up to 1.8 kg.This has been the "standalone" requirement in testing of the aircraft and it must pass in order to fly.

 2. Modifying the Bird habitation

One of the primary reasons that birds can be seen in airports is due to the abundance of food,in order to reduce it seed bearing plants have to be removed in order to eliminate food sources.Usage of pesticides and Insecticides to eliminate the food sources and also to remove the bushes and trees that attract the birds for nesting sites.

3. Manipulating the Plane behavior

Radar Equipment can be used to track the movement and density of bird flocks to predict their behavior and to use the necessary control techniques in order to control them.Also flight time can be adjusted by early morning and late Evening for takeoffs and landings.

MAJOR INCIDENT

On January  15, 2009 US airways flight 1549 from LaGuardia Airport to Douglas International Airport ditched into Hudson river after experiencing the loss of both the turbines.it is suspected that the engine failure was caused by running into a flock of geese at an altitude of  975 m,shortly after the takeoff.All 150 passengers and 5 crew members were safely evacuated after a successful water landing