This is a danger that airplane pilots are well prepared for. a collision between a plane and a bird in flight. A not-so-uncommon incident that generally poses little risk to passengers, but requires tailored safety procedures. This Sunday, August 7, passengers on easyJet flight EZY1877, operating between Manchester, UK and Bilbao, Spain, found this out the hard way.
After striking the bird mid-flight, the A320 was forced to make an emergency landing about 40 minutes into takeoff, according to flight tracking website Flightradar24. “The pilot returned to Manchester in accordance with our procedures and only as a precaution“, the company’s spokesperson told the newspaper Manchester Evening News . Passengers finally arrived almost four hours late on a replacement plane.
Ultrasound examinations and pigs against bird flu.
The “bird menace” is a well-known hazard in the aviation world, so much so that major airports have animal control agents, sometimes called “bird scarers.” Many techniques are used to keep birds away from tracks. While the use of acoustic deterrents (ultrasound, raptor cries through loudspeakers, etc.) or the firing of blank bullets are the most common, some are more unusual. Thus, at the end of 2021, Amsterdam-Schiphol Airport installed pigs in its agricultural land, which was mainly coveted by birds, as Franceinfo recalls.
Over the decades, aircraft manufacturers have adapted their aircraft to this risk. “Parts of the aircraft that are “contrary”, such as the leading edge of the wing or the nose of the aircraft, are reinforced to resist hail or bird strikes.“Recalls Xavier Titelman, an aviation consultant and founder of a treatment center for the fear of flying. Aircraft resistance is specifically tested using the chicken cannon technique, which consists of gelatin blocks that simulate the weight of the bird at various speeds on several parts of the aircraft, including the engines.
Despite all these precautions, collisions with birds have caused several air disasters. One of the most spectacular, miraculously no one died, took place in 2009 in New York and became famous thanks to the movie. Whistle. On January 15, 2009, a US Airways A320 lost both engines after striking migratory birds during takeoff at La Guardia Airport. Captain Chesley Sullenberger and his co-pilot Jeffrey Skiles then decide to land in the Hudson River after only five minutes of flight. As a result of the accident, 155 passengers and crew members got out unharmed.
Source: Le Figaro
