When the real bird throws down, the iron bird

Since 1988, the civil aviation industry has 219 people killed and 52 aircraft of all kinds crashed by colliding with birds.

Looking at a passenger plane as big as a heavy load of hundreds of tons of skimming in the sky, steadily surpassing the wind, thunder and lightning, no one thought that what they feared the most was the animal that humans had learned to give. I go into the air: the birds.

The sky was so large, thought "everyone's way , " but the fact that birds crashed into planes or were attracted to aircraft engines happened quite often. The term aviation English is called bird strike, bird ingestion (sucked into the engine).

Causing fatal accidents, losses of $ 1.2 billion / year

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) said that between 2011 and 2014, there were 65,139 cases worldwide, averaging more than 16,000 annually.

Particularly in the US, the number of collisions is increasing, in 1990 there were 1,851 cases, by 2014 it increased to 7.4 times with 13,668 cases recorded. According to investigators, because there are many cases that do not cause harm, the pilot does not report the incident so the actual number may be many times higher.

Every year these crashes seriously damage international airlines to $ 1.2 billion, in the US alone, $ 400 million.

The bird dropped the plane of pioneer astronaut Cal Rodgers in 1912.

The first bird-borne aviation accident killed in 1912. The primitive propeller aircraft of American pioneer astronaut Cal Rodgers crashed into a flock of seagulls that jammed the wire system. control cable. The plane crashed into Long Beach, California, killing Rodgers.

In 1960, a Lockheed L-188 Electra four-propeller passenger plane at Eastern Air Lines took off when colliding with a flock of starling birds, all four engines failed to crash the plane. Boston harbor killed 62 people.

Across the world, since 1988 up to now, the civil aviation industry has had 219 people killed and 52 aircraft of all kinds fell by crashing with birds.

The military is also unable to avoid this calamity. Air force of several Western countries recorded from 1959-1999 had 141 people killed and 283 aircraft crashed for the same reason.

One case - (Photo: Aviationabove.com).

Particularly, the US Air Force, only since 1987-1991, had 14,000 cases of crashing birds and military aircraft killed 5 pilots, 5 seriously injured and felled 5 fighter jets and airstrikes, causing damage. Material loss averages 59 million USD / year.

"Touch" from above to low

Aircraft are most often hit by birds when they are stored or landed at low altitudes. However, there are also a number of collisions that occur very high from 6,000-9,000m from the ground because some species such as Asian striped goose head can fly as high as 10,000m, Ruppell vultures fly 11.300m high.

According to ICAO statistics, 90% of them, of which 61% of cases are at the height of only 30m or less. The most common collision location is in the nose, front cover, engine.

The "culprit" is mainly large diurnal birds that fly in flocks such as geese, pelicans, vultures, seagulls, mallards and smaller species like doves, penguins .

Spring and autumn - the migration of migratory birds, often at night at a height of 150m, are the most violent incidents.

The impact of these collisions depends on the flight speed, flight direction of the bird and aircraft (parallel or confrontation) as well as bird weight.

According to calculations, in the case of a 1.8kg bird directly hit a plane taking off at a speed of 300km / h, the impulse force on the plane is about 4 tons. However, only 15% of collisions are damaging to aircraft. If the plane crashed into a whole flock of birds, the damage level would be great.

But the most worrisome collision is that birds are sucked into aircraft engines. Due to the design of the turbo fan turbines, when a bird is sucked in and struck with small propellers spinning at very high speeds, it will damage the rotor blades. make the engine stop working.

The most dangerous is that the birds are sucked into the engine when the plane is taking off and about to land. At this time, the plane's speed is low and altitude is close to the ground so it is very likely that the pilot does not have enough time to accelerate, the plane loses the lift and falls.