B6JFKH81 From United States of America, joined Mar 2006, 2767 posts, RR: 7 Reply 1, posted (4 years 4 weeks 12 hours ago) and read 4782 times:
Edit: I may be wrong on this, the article bounces all over the place. I would much rather see the stats in a nice Excel format LOL! JFK is high on the list according to the article though.
"If you do not learn from history, you are doomed to repeat it"
Brilondon From Canada, joined Aug 2005, 3171 posts, RR: 1 Reply 2, posted (4 years 4 weeks 12 hours ago) and read 4714 times:
That makes sense for JFK since it is in a bird sanctuary. Not sure what these statistics are really saying except we seem to have with an increase in the number of flights, we have an increase in the number of bird strikes and animal plane collisions. This article seems to bounce all over the place about the focus of its story and did not look at any thing in particular, example being it states that there were 89,000 incidents since 1990 and only 28 since 2000 that caused damage enough to write off the aircraft.
The article seems to be a grade school project where they just randomly picked up statistics with no apparent connection with each other, other then that they involved aircraft. The actual aircraft involved could be any thing from a ultra-lite to a 747. It didn't specify. This whole article would only garner a C in any class I have ever graded papers for and I would actually send it back for a rewrite to give it more coherence.
SMF is near the Sacramento Delta which is a river estuary with lots of fishes and birds.
Surprised to see that people are dying in aircraft collisions with deer. Didn't know that deer could fly. Wonder how many people die in aircraft collisions with pigs?
Brilondon From Canada, joined Aug 2005, 3171 posts, RR: 1 Reply 4, posted (4 years 4 weeks 12 hours ago) and read 4686 times:
Quoting Eghansen (Reply 3): Surprised to see that people are dying in aircraft collisions with deer. Didn't know that deer could fly. Wonder how many people die in aircraft collisions with pigs?
Lets hope none or I will have to put the cover on my car.
B6JFKH81 From United States of America, joined Mar 2006, 2767 posts, RR: 7 Reply 5, posted (4 years 4 weeks 12 hours ago) and read 4657 times:
Quoting Brilondon (Reply 2): The article seems to be a grade school project where they just randomly picked up statistics with no apparent connection with each other, other then that they involved aircraft. The actual aircraft involved could be any thing from a ultra-lite to a 747. It didn't specify. This whole article would only garner a C in any class I have ever graded papers for and I would actually send it back for a rewrite to give it more coherence.
...and that statement is put together better than the article LOL! It does seem to jump around a lot.
Quoting Eghansen (Reply 3): SMF is near the Sacramento Delta which is a river estuary with lots of fishes and birds.
This is very true, but I was expecting a place in Florida, like in the Miami area where you have huge migratory flocks going through the everglades. But the article does say that the farming operations near SMF attract lots of the birdies that like to eat the crops.
Quoting Brilondon (Reply 4): Lets hope none or I will have to put the cover on my car.
LOL!
But, if a plane hits a pig instead of a bird...does it smell like cooked bacon???
~H81
"If you do not learn from history, you are doomed to repeat it"
RFields5421 From United States of America, joined Jul 2007, 6150 posts, RR: 25 Reply 6, posted (4 years 4 weeks 11 hours ago) and read 4564 times:
Quoting Eghansen (Reply 3): Surprised to see that people are dying in aircraft collisions with deer. Didn't know that deer could fly
Deer are the animal species which kill more people each year in the United States than any other. Much worse, much more dangerous than snakes, wildcats, wolfes, etc.
I'm sure that many of you have experience with deer and cars. That can be a heck of a lot of damage.
An aircraft is actually lightly built compared to a car, and impacts with deer on runways are at much higher speeds. Plus deer can clear almost any fence around an airport. Which is pretty close to flying if you watch them.
Quoting Brilondon (Reply 2): The article seems to be a grade school project where they just randomly picked up statistics with no apparent connection with each other, other then that they involved aircraft.
The article is a typical Gannet quick rush to pull a few stats out of a very complex report. The base data is very solid report.
But of course it is very simplified - because the USA Today audience is pretty much grade school level.
I'm waiting for the AOPA article on the data.
The article really proves what the airlines were worried about - a wild knee-jerk reaction which makes the issues look bad totally out of context.
I had a personal experience with SMF We were on the take-off roll on 16L for LAX when the captain and I noticed two birds on the runway centerline. By that point, we were far enough into the take-off roll that we couldn't do much but close our eyes and cross our fingers! One of the birds departed the runway while the other (much slower) bird decided the stick around. Sure enough, I heard a loud thump as we hit the bird on the right side of the nose cone. We reported the bird strike to the SMF tower controller and upon landed in LAX, maintenance took the plane out of service with a sizable dent in the nose. And that's my SMF story
RFields5421 From United States of America, joined Jul 2007, 6150 posts, RR: 25 Reply 9, posted (4 years 4 weeks 6 hours ago) and read 4181 times:
This is interesting - CNN's research of the database has JFK far down the list of total incidents.
DEN - 2,416
DFW - 2,376
ORD - 2,346
JFK - 1,811
MEM - 1,541
IAD - 1,204
SLC - 1,113
MCO - 1,085
SFO - 1,021
PIT - 994
JFK appears to top the list of airports with animal strikes where the aircraft had substantial damage or was destroyed with 30
SMF is second on that list with 28
Here is one I like - there were 14 animal strikes of American Alligators in the 18 year period of the report data including one with substantial aircraft damage.
One single United Airlines B737 aircraft suffered at least 29 separate bird strike incidents and
one with a small deer - since 2000.
While the number of incidents reported is increasing at a very high rate, the FAA estimates only 20% of strikes are reported. And that the reporting is sporadic depending upon the airport and the airline where the incident occurs.
Reporting is getting better according the the FAA, not actual strikes increasing with more incidents per flying hour.
Brons2 From United States of America, joined Sep 2001, 2969 posts, RR: 5 Reply 11, posted (4 years 4 weeks 4 hours ago) and read 4048 times:
Quoting RFields5421 (Reply 6): Deer are the animal species which kill more people each year in the United States than any other. Much worse, much more dangerous than snakes, wildcats, wolfes, etc.
Freaking deer! Those things are rats with antlers! A complete nuisance.
I'm guessing the accidents with aircraft involve deer on the runway and GA aircraft.
Side note: I ride a bicycle a lot and you also have to watch for them when you're riding, especially when going downhill...you get going 20mph or higher and it's not going to be pretty if a deer jumps out in front of you.
Firings, if well done, are good for employee morale.
"Another event about 30 years in the past was from a PWA reps report of a B737 mounted JT8D powerplant collision with a horse which had gotten through the almost non-existent airport fence. As I remember, this event occurred in Brazil. The report detailed the condition of the engine and cowling's how that the engine was full of processed hay."
The quoted paragraph might give an indication as to the kind of smell present, and it isn't the aroma of cooked bacon.
From my experience as an aircraft powerplant engineer, the residue left from so called bird strikes smells real bad, even if it only goes through the fan ducts. The bird residue that goes through the core engine is really bad.
I've seen a couple of bird strike powerplants (engines) disassembled outside of the shop area - by volunteers - due to the strong smell.
MMEPHX From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 14, posted (4 years 4 weeks 3 hours ago) and read 3978 times:
Quoting Eghansen (Reply 3): This whole article would only garner a C in any class I have ever graded papers for and I would actually send it back for a rewrite to give it more coherence.
...it's USA Today what do you expect? "Written" for grade school readers by grade school journalists. I 'm surprised they even know that birds aren't something made in Seattle by Boeing...
Eghansen From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 15, posted (4 years 4 weeks 2 hours ago) and read 3924 times:
Quoting RFields5421 (Reply 6): An aircraft is actually lightly built compared to a car, and impacts with deer on runways are at much higher speeds. Plus deer can clear almost any fence around an airport. Which is pretty close to flying if you watch them.
It appears that USA Today have removed the part about deer. They now refer mostly to "wildlife".
Brilondon From Canada, joined Aug 2005, 3171 posts, RR: 1 Reply 16, posted (4 years 3 weeks 6 days 21 hours ago) and read 3814 times:
Quoting BOStonsox (Reply 7): They do every Christmas! Who do you think pull Santa's sleigh?
Actually they are Caribou. Deer don't thrive at the North Pole. Now if one of them hit an airplane at 15000 feet, that would make for some interesting news.
B6JFKH81 From United States of America, joined Mar 2006, 2767 posts, RR: 7 Reply 17, posted (4 years 3 weeks 6 days 15 hours ago) and read 3672 times:
Quoting RFields5421 (Reply 9): JFK appears to top the list of airports with animal strikes where the aircraft had substantial damage or was destroyed with 30
SMF is second on that list with 28
Yeah, I am seeing that in an article from Newsday this morning too, so the stats being reported by the press are really pertaining to how many incidents caused a/c damage, not necessarily the amount of strikes overall at the cities. Here is the Newsday article (and I am not a huge Newsday fan, but it was something to read while I had my coffee and bagel this morning LOL):
An interesting quote from the Newsday article caught my attention though:
"One of the flaws in the database is that a wildlife strike can occur while an aircraft is in flight and subsequently get recorded at the airport where the plane lands rather than where the strike occurred, said Carole Bannerman, of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which helps maintain the FAA's wildlife strike database. Many times, the government doesn't know where it occurred, Bannerman said."
It would be exceptionally difficult to keep records on where bird strikes occurred EXACTLY on the map. I do wonder though, what if a plane is being vectored in for a approach at JFK, but is flying over or very near another airport when it gets a bird strike (i.e.: flying over EWR, LGA, ISP)...the bird strike still gets "charged" to JFK? That just doesn't seem right to me for some reason. I can understand if the pilots maybe didn't know they had a bird strike, but if you get a blood smear on the windscreen from a sea gull 30 miles out from destination, you know you had a bird strike (or hit a parachuter?), why not report it for the airport you are flying over as it only helps in the grand scheme of things, no?
~H81
"If you do not learn from history, you are doomed to repeat it"
Quote: The reindeer (Rangifer tarandus), also known as the caribou when wild in North America, is an Arctic and Subarctic-dwelling deer, widespread and numerous across the northern Holarctic.
The caribou-on-a-stick that I ate well into the arctic, deep in AS service territory, a few months ago was pretty darned yummy, though! The frozen raw chunks of caribou meat wasn't bad, either, though I liked the cooked variety with spices more.
Scoobyd75 From United States of America, joined Dec 2004, 42 posts, RR: 0 Reply 19, posted (4 years 3 weeks 6 days 14 hours ago) and read 3512 times:
Philly has to be up there. Just saw what was left of a bird stuck to to the tail of one of out Dash8's. It was funny because they had to bring one of our deicing trucks to take it off. Also everytime I take off from here I see seagulls flying all over the place. Always did worry me.
Pilotpip From United States of America, joined Sep 2003, 3082 posts, RR: 12 Reply 20, posted (4 years 3 weeks 6 days 14 hours ago) and read 3387 times:
Quoting AAAL (Reply 13): You can add another one to that list for JFK. AA141 from LHR tonight hit a bird during the VOR13L app thankfully it landed safely.
Just like 99.9% of the birdstrikes.
This wouldn't be newsworthy if it wasn't for Sully and friends.
DocLightning From United States of America, joined Nov 2005, 16819 posts, RR: 57 Reply 22, posted (4 years 3 weeks 6 days 13 hours ago) and read 3120 times:
Quoting Eghansen (Reply 3):
Surprised to see that people are dying in aircraft collisions with deer. Didn't know that deer could fly. Wonder how many people die in aircraft collisions with pigs?
RFields5421 From United States of America, joined Jul 2007, 6150 posts, RR: 25 Reply 23, posted (4 years 3 weeks 6 days 13 hours ago) and read 2952 times:
Quoting Brons2 (Reply 11): I'm guessing the accidents with aircraft involve deer on the runway and GA aircraft.
A few years ago there were two Lears taken out by deer - I think in the same week. One was a Lear 60 at an airport in Washington near Portland. Hit the deer right at rotation. Enough damage to the wing to lose lift and put the plane on the ground and through the end of runway fence. Everyone escaped though the plane burned completely.
The other was a L55 or L45 in Alabama, also hit at near rotation. That one involved two critical injuries in the post crash fire.
One of the problems with deer is that there can be multiple strikes because they cross in a pack. I seem to remember a thread on this forum years ago about a B737 hitting four or five on a landing roll at an airport in the US Great Plains region with substantial damage. Have to hunt for it.
RFields5421 From United States of America, joined Jul 2007, 6150 posts, RR: 25 Reply 24, posted (4 years 3 weeks 6 days 13 hours ago) and read 2940 times:
The main problem with this FAA release is that they did not release a news story or such, just a raw database.
We know how little real understanding of aviation most of the new media has, now they have a huge database of incidents, and are writing stories with no context as to what the data means.
25 FlyLKU: Migrating birds? I agree with those above. This type of statistic needs to take into account where the strike actually took place and the number of m
26 B6JFKH81: Absolutely. In essence it will turn into the problem of the blind leading the blind as the press (blind #1) will write up the stories that interpret
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From United States of America, joined Mar 2006, 2767 posts, 
From Canada, joined Aug 2005, 3171 posts, 
We were on the take-off roll on 16L for LAX when the captain and I noticed two birds on the runway centerline. By that point, we were far enough into the take-off roll that we couldn't do much but close our eyes and cross our fingers! One of the birds departed the runway while the other (much slower) bird decided the stick around. Sure enough, I heard a loud thump as we hit the bird on the right side of the nose cone. We reported the bird strike to the SMF tower controller and upon landed in LAX, maintenance took the plane out of service with a sizable dent in the nose. And that's my SMF story 
Now if one of them hit an airplane at 15000 feet, that would make for some interesting news.
The frozen raw chunks of caribou meat wasn't bad, either, though I liked the cooked variety with spices more.
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