What is a bird strike? How concerned you need to be when flying

Sign up to Simon Calder’s free travel email for expert advice and money-saving discounts

Get Simon Calder’s Travel email

Get Simon Calder’s Travel email

As climate change shifts migratory patterns and bird populations grow, the problem posed by birds for airlines, pilots and passengers is becoming more visible.

On 30 December 2024, 179 passengers lost their lives when a Jeju Air flight crashed in South Korea following a suspected “bird strike”.

A preliminary investigation released last month confirmed that bird strikes played a role in the fatal crash, with feathers and blood stains from Baikal teals, a migratory duck species, found in both engines of the Boeing 737-800.

The deadly incident was not the first time an aircraft has crashed following a collision with a bird.

In 2009, US Airways flight 1549 famously landed on the Hudson River following a collision with a flock of geese migrating through the airspace at a low altitude.

The flock took out both engines during the “Miracle on the Hudson” incident that was, fortunately, survived by all 155 passengers and crew onboard.

With efforts to prevent collisions between birds and aircraft including a frozen chicken cannon, long grass and a Tina Turner playlist, here is everything prospective flyers need to know about bird strikes.

Read more: Astonishing damage revealed after Tui plane’s collision with swans

A bird strike is a collision between a bird or airborne animal and an aircraft.

Bird strikes can cause significant damage to aircraft, with a risk of jet engines losing power should they suck in a bird. Struck aircraft will often need to abort their take-off or landing attempts, which can be costly for airlines and their passengers.

Bird strikes are common in the aviation industry and are most likely to occur during takeoff, landing or near airports.

Globally, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) estimates that there were just shy of 300,000 “wildlife strikes” between 1990 and 2022.

According to the latest Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) figures, there were 1,432 recorded bird strikes in the UK in 2022. The CAA recorded an average rate of 256 bird strikes per 10,000 aircraft movements in July of the same year.

In 2021, a paper in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences estimated that there are at least 50 billion wild birds worldwide.

The more aircraft movements in an area, the higher the risk of a bird strike.

Bird strike remains, known as “snarge” are sent to the Smithsonian Institution’s Feather Identification Laboratory and a lab in York to be correctly identified following collisions in the US and UK.

Of the species hit, the CAA found that the most common collisions were between aircraft and gulls, wood pigeons, pigeons and skylarks.

It is very rare for a bird strike to be linked with fatalities, and in the majority of collisions, aircraft land safely with very little damage.

Of over 1,400 strikes recorded in 2022, only 45 caused aircraft damage, with just 28 resulting in a flight return or diversion.

Generally, a bird strike will be far worse for the birds involved than for passengers and the aircraft. However, bird strikes have caused several human casualties during aviation accidents when aircraft structures, including the cockpit windscreen, have been severely damaged or an engine has lost power.

According to the FAA, between 1988 and 2023, 76 people died in the US after planes collided with wildlife.

Birds that weigh over four pounds or an encounter with a flock are far more likely to cause damage to an aircraft than a singular bird.

Bird strikes can have a huge impact on an airline’s operations – at great cost.

Commercial jet engines undergo intense testing before they are allowed to operate, with planes designed to be able to operate with just one engine. Most are also required to be able to withstand an impact with a bird that weighs four pounds.

This was originally tested by having frozen chickens fired at all aircraft engines from a gas cannon. Now, simulators and dummy carcasses tend to test the capacity of engines and the resistance of aircraft windshields.

Pilots are also instructed to avoid migratory flight paths and reach a higher altitude quickly when operating in areas where bird strikes are common.

Many airports are surrounded by wide open areas, forests and wetlands – but the environment around aviation hubs is tightly controlled.

Bird preventative measures often include the management of local waste disposal sites and keeping the grass long, while flare guns, dogs and lasers are deployed as bird-scaring tactics.

As investigations continue into the cause of the Jeju Air crash in December, all airports in South Korea have been ordered to install bird detection cameras and thermal imaging radars.

At some airports, including Bristol, designated staff members blast the sound of bird species in distress in an auditory repellent to nearby birds.

In 2012, airport chiefs at Staverton, near Gloucester, played Tina Turner hits at high volume from a van that drives around the ground when the bird distress noises “weren’t working properly”.

More severely, after the Hudson incident, around 70,000 birds were controversially culled in New York, with all the geese rounded up from Prospect Park, taken to a hanger and gassed.

Read more: Bird detection radars to be installed at all South Korea airports after Jeju Air crash

Source: independent.co.uk