Two planes in India — a Spicejet one bound for Delhi and an Indigo flight — were struck by bird hits on Sunday and had to be grounded. As per International Civil Aviation Organization data, airlines face an average of 34 such strikes in a day, amounting to a loss of around $1 billion annually
Passengers deboard the SpiceJet plane after it made an emergency landing in Patna. PTI
Sunday was a bad day for flying in India.
Two separate flights, one involving a Patna-Delhi SpiceJet flight and an IndiGo plane flying Guwahati-Delhi, had to return back to their origin airports and were grounded for maintenance after a bird hit the planes.
The incidents will now be probed by the aviation safety regulator — Directorate General of Civil Aviation.
We take a look at what exactly are bird hits and the danger it poses to the aviation sector.
What is a bird strike?
The event of an airborne animal (usually a bird or a bat) hitting an airplane in flight is referred to as a bird strike.
Bird strikes also happen to other man-made objects on land, such as cars, power lines and wind turbines, which usually result in death for the birds.
According to scienceabc.com, the first ever case of a bird strike was reported by Orville Wright (one of the Wright brothers who is credited with inventing and flying the world’s first successful airplane) in 1905.
It was reported that Orville was flying circles near a cornfield in Ohio; he had apparently been chasing flocks of birds before he hit one. The dead bird lay on the wing of his airplane until he made a sharp turn to dump it off.
Bird strikes usually occur when an airplane is flying at low altitudes. Therefore, the most favourable conditions for a bird strike are during take-offs or landings (or other related phases) of airplanes.
A survey held by International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), including data from 91 countries found out that airlines face an average of 34 bird strikes in a day. The damage amounted to more than $1 billion annually. A relieving fact is that almost 92 per cent of the air strikes are without any damage.
How dangerous are bird strikes?
Bird strikes are among the most common threats to aircraft safety, and they typically occur during the take-off or landing phases of a flight.
Bird strikes occur almost every day, but some are more dangerous than others.
Arguably the most dangerous form of bird strike is one in which a bird is ingested into the aircraft’s engine; this event is referred to as a jet engine ingestion (since the bird is ‘ingested’ by the engine).
Of course, the danger in such situations increase further if a larger flock of multiple birds is involved.
The most famous incident is that of US Airways flight 1549 on 15 January 2009. The plane was scheduled from La Guardia, New York City to Charlotte, North Carolina when the aircraft hit a flock of birds (Canada geese), so significantly it obscured the pilots’ windscreen view. Both engines failed and the pilot, Captain Chesley Sullenberger – affectionately known as Sully — landed it on the Hudson River with no fatalities. This incident was then made into the famous movie Sully, starring Tom Hanks.
In the case of Sunday’s incident, SpiceJet Boeing 737 aircraft had to make an emergency landing at the Patna airport after a bird hit one of its engines. According to the DGCA, the bird hit led to the failure of engine 1 on the Patna-Delhi SpiceJet aircraft, which was forced to make an emergency landing at Bihta Airforce Station in Patna after its left wing caught fire.