The wildlife threat to commercial passenger aircraft has increased to the point where experts on bird strikes are calling for additional measures to raise the safety bar. They believe that the solutions include bird population reduction at airports, new technology and possibly tougher bird ingestion standards for jetliner turbofan engines.

Top bird strike researcher, Richard A. Dolbeer, a former U.S. Dept. of Agriculture scientist who coordinated wildlife management at airports nationwide and was chairman of Bird Strike Committee USA, a multi-agency group, warns that the populations of some of the biggest birds in North America are exploding thanks to environmental and conservation efforts. And with a parallel growth in air traffic, there is an increasing risk of mid-air collisions between birds and aircraft.
Speaking at a recent bird strike prevention forum, Dolbeer called for: a reevaluation of engine airworthiness standards; focused wildlife hazard mitigation efforts in and around the airport; and evaluation and fielding of bird detection radars.

John Ostrom, manager of airside operations for Minneapolis-St. Paul International and the current chairman of Bird Strike Committee USA, says “from the dawn of aviation to the present day, wildlife has posed a significant threat to aircraft and to the passengers they carry. However, the threat has significantly increased in recent years with dramatic increases in populations of many bird species in North America that are hazardous to aircraft.”

He says 24 of the 39 largest bird species in North America (each weighing four pounds or more) have shown major population growth in the past 30 years; only three species have declined. In particular, the Canada goose population is proving particularly problematic. The non-migratory population of Canada geese, which weigh 8-12 pounds, has quadrupled from one million to nearly four million in the United States.

To make matters worse, modern turbofan-powered aircraft, with quieter engines, are less obvious to birds compared to noisier piston-powered aircraft and older turbine-powered aircraft.

Bird strikes are not uncommon. In June 2007, a Boeing 757-200 at Denver International had to abort a takeoff while going between 150-160 mph after birds the size of grapefruit flew into its path. Birds were sucked into both engines.

In July 2008, the pilot of a Boeing 737-300 in the midst of a 139 mph takeoff roll spotted a hawk with a four-foot wingspan on the runway. As the bird flew past the left side of the plane, the crew heard a "very loud bang," and there was engine surge. The pilot aborted the takeoff at great strain to the aircraft's brakes, which caught fire. Fire trucks doused the flames. No one was hurt.

In Rome, on Nov. 10, 2008, a Ryanair Boeing 737-800 struck a massive flock of starlings as it approached Rome’s Ciampino Airport. The six crewmembers and 166 passengers escaped injury.

There are over 89,000 bird strikes recorded in the Federal Aviation Administration’s National Wildlife Strike Database since 1990, about one strike for every 10,000 non-military flights. About 7,100 wildlife strikes were reported in 2006 compared to 1,700 in 1990.

In 2007, over 7,600 birds and other wildlife were reported to have hit civil aircraft in the U.S. But the number of mid-air collisions between aircraft and flying fowl is actually much higher since less than twenty percent of all strikes are currently reported, the FAA estimates.

Since 2000, at least 486 commercial aircraft have collided with birds, according to the FAA. Of those incidents, 166 led to emergency landings and 66 resulted in aborted takeoffs. The Bird Strike Committee USA says bird strikes cause $600 million in damage to aircraft in the U.S. every year.

Airplane collisions with birds have more than doubled at 13 major U.S. airports since 2000, according to the U.S. aviation agency. Topping the list of airports where planes either substantially damaged or destroyed by birds since 2000 were John F. Kennedy International in New York with at least 30 such accidents and Sacramento International in California with at least 28 such accidents.

The FAA list includes 28 cases since 2000 when a collision with a bird or other animal such as a deer on a runway was so severe that the aircraft was considered destroyed.

“Bird Strike Committee USA supports more aggressive reporting of all wildlife strikes, up to and including making strike reporting mandatory. Significantly reducing the aircraft/wildlife threat will require a collaborative effort by all aviation stakeholders with a major investment in education and research and development,” believes Ostrom.

Amidst the evidence that Canadian geese strikes on Jan. 15, 2009 knocked out both engines of US Airways Flight 1549, the celebrated Miracle on the Hudson, the FAA is testing technologies to reduce the risks of such collisions.

The efforts range from special ground-based radars designed to detect potentially hazardous flocks of birds near airports to strobe-like lighting systems intended to turn birds away from aircraft during flight.

In 2000, the FAA began research to determine if low-cost radars can reliably detect birds at or near (within three to possibly five miles of) airports and be used to develop an airport bird strike advisory system.

These systems generally work by overlaying the radar data on an airport geographic information system. Bird detection radar may have the most promise as tools to help airport operators manage their wildlife control programs. However, as many airports routinely have birds in the area, The FAA does not yet know if this system would be capable of providing alerts that would be operationally suitable for making specific time
critical decisions on landing or takeoff.

The FAA is conducting radar evaluations currently with two bird radar systems at Seattle-Tacoma International, two bird radar systems at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island in Oak Harbor, WA, and one portable research radar unit that is owned/leased by the University of Illinois, having finished a brief deployment at YVR (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada). The FAA is planning additional testing at Chicago O’Hare, Dallas-Ft. Worth, and John F. Kennedy International starting later this year.

Sea-Tac Managing Director Mark Reis recently described for lawmakers his airport's wildlife mitigation efforts and highlighted the deployment of an avian radar system. Reis told members of the House aviation subcommittee that airports face three key challenges in their wildlife mitigation efforts, including land use issues, complex and often conflicting or overlapping regulations and funding.

Reis also outlined the extensive wildlife mitigation plan that Sea-Tac has had in place for the past 30 years that includes strategic landscaping, ensuring that plants at or around the airport do not provide food, keeping grass at a specific height to deter wildlife use, and tactics to harass and relocate wildlife.

Sea-Tac has begun to test additional tools to detect avian movement, Reis said. In collaboration with the University of Illinois, the airport implemented an avian radar system. The total cost of the system was between $200,000 and $300,000.

According to Reis, as it currently operates today, avian radar is not yet the "silver bullet" as it detects too much bird activity, meaning airports need to determine what information is best to pass on immediately to the air traffic controllers.

Reis also told the subcommittee, “Airports would benefit from having stronger, federally-mandated mechanisms to control land uses in the vicinity of their airports. Laws limit the ability of airports to modify or eliminate attractive habitats on or near airports, even if similar habitat could be provided elsewhere. These issues have had a stifling effect on airport efforts to control hazardous wildlife around the country.”

One question emerging from the probe of the US Airways Airbus A320 ditching into New York's Hudson River is whether jet engines should be required to withstand a collision with a bird the size of a Canada goose.

National Transportation Safety Board Member Robert Sumwalt said in recent congressional testimony that the Safety Board is considering whether to recommend tougher federal standards for jet engines in response to the incident.

The CFM56 engines on the Airbus A320 were certified by the European Joint Airworthiness Authority (JAA) and, subsequently, by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) under a bilateral agreement.

The engines were originally certified to withstand the ingestion of seven 1-1/2 pound birds directed at the core of the engine. CFM actually tested the engine using three 2-1/2 pound birds aimed at the core, which exceeded the requirements at the time. Today’s test standard for the CFM56-5 is one 2-1/2 pound bird followed by five 1-1/2 pound birds, with a maximum allowable 25 percent loss of thrust.

“The fact that the accident engines exceeded even today’s standard and still failed, is of great interest and concern to the Safety Board,” said Sumwalt.

On November 16, 2007, the FAA amended this certification standard by raising the weight of the bird to eight pounds for engines manufactured in the future. In its September 2006 response to the FAA notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) that preceded this rule change, the Safety Board commented that the FAA’s proposed bird weight was too low.

“We did not specify a minimum weight, but we did note that the weight should be increased to represent birds as large as the Canada goose, which can weigh up to 24 pounds, thereby representing a more realistic threat to airplanes,” Sumwalt added.

He said “dual jet engine malfunctions in general and dual engine malfunctions caused by ingestion of birds in particular are extremely rare events. Multiple jet engine failures can occur because of fuel exhaustion, rain ingestion, fuel icing, volcanic ash ingestion, and bird ingestion. Most often, bird ingestion causes no loss of thrust or a partial power loss. Even in the case of US Airways Flight 1549, which did lose thrust in the left engine, the right engine did not fail completely. However, the thrust available from that engine was insufficient to allow the airplane to remain airborne.”

John Carey, chairman of the Accident and Investigation Committee, Air Line Pilots Association, said at the same hearing: “the failure of the engines on Flight 1549 should prompt a fresh look at engine design and certification standards. Although the investigation is ongoing, it seems clear from the facts in the public domain, that we have new data in which to look at bird ingestion. FAA leadership is also critical towards this effort.”

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) officials said the loss of two engines made the ditching of Flight 1549 an extraordinarily rare event. Peggy Gilligan, The FAA’s associate administrator for aviation safety, called the water landing “a truly extraordinary event in aviation history: a multiple bird ingestion that virtually simultaneously caused engine failure in both engines of a commercial airliner on takeoff, resulting in an emergency water landing with no loss of life.”

Gilligan said the FAA certifies all civil aircraft to meet a series of minimum standards. To receive FAA approval, an aircraft must be airworthy--that is, be designed and built to fly safely--as well as survive situations in which internal or external factors may interfere with safe operations of the aircraft.

When the FAA certificated the Airbus A320, the design requirements and operating procedures took into account numerous exigencies, including: flight into a flock of birds, emergency landings on land, loss of engine power, and emergency landings in water.

The CFM56-powered A320 were certified to meet these requirements:

• Flocking Birds. The engine is able to ingest a flock of birds (seven 1.5 lb. birds) and continue to run for five minutes at its takeoff power setting.

• Single Bird. The engine is able to ingest a single large bird (four lbs.) and be able to shut down safely. When a large bird is ingested, no continued operation is required, essentially, the engine is designed to shut down, e.g., with no hazardous debris or fire.

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