Iraqi Bird Study to Help Reduce Aircraft Mishaps

One of the U.S. Air Force's greatest airpower adversaries doesn't wear the uniform of another country; it wears feathers. Both deadly and expensive, aircraft accidents and mishaps caused by collisions with birds have cost the service approximately $35 million each year since 1985, according to USAF safety...

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One of the U.S. Air Force's greatest airpower adversaries doesn't wear the uniform of another country; it wears feathers.

Both deadly and expensive, aircraft accidents and mishaps caused by collisions with birds have cost the service approximately $35 million each year since 1985, according to USAF safety records.

"Bird strikes have a very negative impact on the mission," said USAF Capt. Andrew Baumgart, a 23rd Expeditionary Fighter Squadron F-16 pilot. "In the best case scenario, they will cause additional maintenance man-hours for minor repairs, inspections and cleanup. In the worst case scenario, they can cause the loss of a multimillion dollar warfighting asset. Either way it has a very negative impact on our ability to generate more sorties and continued air coverage for our guys on the ground."

To better understand their winged rivals, Air Force safety personnel have for years shipped feather, blood and tissue samples from bird strikes and bird depredation efforts to be analyzed at the Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History, Feather Identification Laboratory in Washington, D.C.

Sometimes the remains of whole birds were also shipped to the laboratory to be studied from locations in the United States, but never from Iraq -- until now.

Members of the 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing Safety Office at Balad Air Base, Iraq, sent their first shipment of whole bird carcasses, obtained through bird depredation efforts, to the Feather Lab May 3, said USAF TSgt. David Young who heads up the Balad AB Bird Aircraft Strike Hazard program through which trained volunteers shoot birds that pose threats to aircraft. The Feather Lab experts will examine the more than 40 birds shipped from Balad AB to determine what species live in the vicinity.

The shipment represents a win-win situation for the Smithsonian and the busy air base, where multiple types of aircraft take off and land 24/7.

"Sending the birds to the Smithsonian will help establish what the species are here and their migratory routes. We don't have that kind of data here," said Young who added that 124 bird strikes had been recorded on Balad AB aircraft from October 2006 to October 2007.

The data on the shipped birds will be compiled and evaluated by the Smithsonian laboratory experts and provided to the Balad AB Safety Office. Understanding the types of birds that live near Balad AB's extremely busy runways will help the safety personnel take actions to reduce their nesting habitats in order to bring down the bird populations around the airfield. Additionally, if mission requirements permit, flights could be scheduled to avoid peak hours of bird activity, said USAF Lt. Col. Ken Ekman, the 332nd AEW Safety chief.

The Smithsonian will benefit from the whole bird shipment because of the 620,000 bird specimens that it currently has, only eight are from Iraq and those represent only four species, said Dr. Carla Dove of the Smithsonian's Feather Lab.

"Whole bird samples are the basis of all taxonomic and systematic research on birds. The birds are skinned, stuffed with cotton and kept in the museum collection forever," she said. "Having these specimens available for study will be a great benefit to our identification program and to the study of birds of that region. When specimens are catalogued into our collections, they are available for researchers all over the world to come to study, or to borrow for examination."

Another benefit of receiving whole birds is that experts can match unknown specimen feathers to whole bird samples.

"Whole specimens benefit the bird strike identification program tremendously," Dove said. "When we receive a bird strike sample, we immediately wash the feather because it usually has blood, tissue and other 'snarge' attached. Once the feather is back to its original shape, we compare it with whole bird samples that we have preserved in the collection for a perfect match. Today, we prepare the birds with spread wings and as flat skins so we can find every feather without having to manipulate a specimen that was prepared in a traditional manner with the wings tight against the body."

"I plan to also use the specimens from Balad AB to obtain the DNA sequence to add to our database," she said. "That way, even if we get a small blood or tissue sample that does not have feathers, we can possibly get an identification using the DNA.

"By understanding the exact species of birds that cause problems to aircraft and flight safety, we can begin to do things to prevent the damage from occurring. You must know what the species of birds are that are causing problems before you can do anything about it. It's just like any kind of pest management," Dove added.

"The same is true for bird problems on airfields. The flight safety group will use the data to understand the movements and migratory patterns of birds and to know which bird species are causing problems. Species identification is the first step in bird strike prevention," she said.

While the Balad AB safety personnel realize that eliminating the threat of bird strikes altogether is impossible, they are doing their best to mitigate the risks of bird strikes occurring.