This week marks the 10th anniversary of arguably the most famous emergency landing in modern aviation history.
Ten years after what came to be known as the “Miracle on the Hudson,” it’s still amazing that everyone aboard US Airways Flight 1549 survived.
Shortly after pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger took off from New York’s LaGuardia Airport on January 15, 2009, with 154 passengers and crew, two 8-pound geese flew into each of the plane’s twin engines. Suddenly both engines weren’t working, and Sullenberger faced a gut-wrenching decision.
Flight 1549 reminds us that we’re not the only creatures that travel in the sky.
From 1990 to 2016, the annual number of reported bird strikes in the US increased from 1,850 to 13,408, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. That’s up more than 700%. Globally, from 2008-2015, the International Civil Aviation Organization said nearly 98,000 bird strikes were reported in 105 nations.
Just last Friday, a United Airlines flight from Spokane to Denver was diverted to Seattle-Tacoma airport because of a bird strike.
In April 2016, a bird slammed into an Airbus A321 carrying 174 passengers taking off from Las Vegas, cracking its windshield.
No one was hurt in 2012 when birds hit the right side of Air Force Two with Vice President Joe Biden aboard as it approached California’s Santa Barbara Municipal Airport.
The rise in bird strikes can be misleading, said Dr. Archie Dickey, director of the Center for Wildlife and Aviation at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
There aren’t necessarily that many more strikes occurring, he said. The number of reported bird strikes went up in part because the aviation community is paying more attention. People are reporting strikes more often.
It’s not just birds. Hundreds of strikes are reported involving bats — and even reptiles. At New York’s JFK airport, hundreds of diamondback terrapin turtles have been known to crawl from Jamaica Bay onto airport property — sometimes even getting onto runways.
“Wildlife is going to come in for three reasons: food, water or shelter,” he explained. Remove those and you’ll force birds to go elsewhere.
As a final option, some airports, such as New York’s LaGuardia and JFK have resorted to rounding up geese and gassing them to death.
Emerging technology may provide other tools. The FAA has spent more than 10 years trying to perfect special radar that detects birds. It has struggled to track birds because they’re fairly small, but experts said the FAA has been improving it.
At the time of Flight 1549, bird-strike avoidance training was not included in US Airways’ ground school curriculum or the simulator syllabus, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.