Rueters News Service
Deborah Zabarenko
July 17, 2006

CAPE CANAVERAL - Alligators, manatees and vultures share Kennedy Space Center with space shuttle Discovery, so for more than 40 years NASA has had to adjust to launching rockets in the middle of a national wildlife refuge.

NASA has redesigned its boats to protect manatees, painted gravel to fend off terns and shielded sea turtles from launch pad lights. Most recently, it has tackled vultures with the Roadkill Roundup.

This effort to remove animal carcasses from local roads was prompted by the vultures that often circle the launch pad where Discovery, which is due to return to earth on Monday, lifted off on July 4.

As big as turkeys, these buzzards can get within flapping distance of space vessels, and Discovery actually hit one on its way into orbit last year.

The collision did no apparent damage to the shuttle but prompted NASA to adopt a plan that includes making loud noises to shoo vultures and other birds away from the rockets. The Roadkill Roundup is a longer-term strategy to get to the root of the vulture problem.

A group including aerospace contractors, the US Fish and Wildlife Service and a veterinary pathologist from Disney's Animal Kingdom came up with the plan to cut down on the vultures' food source by carting away dead animals.

Basically, people who come to Kennedy Space Center and the neighboring Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge are encouraged to report the location of carcasses that might look appetizing to the area's vultures.

In the three months since the program started, more than 100 animals have been removed, including raccoons, possums, armadillos, hogs, turtles, otters and a few alligators, according to NASA.

ROADKILL ROUNDUP

The Roadkill Roundup has another purpose, said Dorn Whitmore, a ranger at the Merritt Island refuge, which virtually encompasses the space complex.

"We've tried to GPS (global positioning system) all those locations where the roadkills are," Dorn said in an interview at his office at the refuge, which is decorated with a stuffed redfish and the head of a feral hog. "We're going to establish some wildlife crossing areas where we find that pattern, and target some signs to slow vehicles down."

The refuge was set up in 1963, a year after the space center was established, and covers a 35-mile-long (56-km) swath of territory that attracts more than 500 species to the area, Whitmore said.

NASA owns the refuge and the US Fish and Wildlife Service manages it. The agencies work together to smooth contact between the natural and aeronautical worlds -- and sometimes that means changing NASA policy, the ranger said.

-- When the lights of NASA's launch complexes disturbed federally protected sea turtles nesting on nearby beaches at night, NASA agreed to shield the lights.

-- NASA boats that retrieve the shuttle's solid rocket boosters after launches re-enter the space complex at a point with a high concentration of manatees, and the boats' propellers threatened to harm the aquatic mammals. The vessels were redesigned so the propellers could be turned off.

-- The space center's runway proved tempting to a threatened species of bird, the least tern, which is used to nesting on pale sand beaches but opted instead for the beach-colored gravel at the ends of the runway. The gravel was painted black to discourage the terns from returning.

Alligators are plentiful around the space center but tend to shun humans. However, those alligators that have lost their fear of people are destroyed by local hunters called in for this purpose, Whitmore said.

With Daytona Beach to the north, Cocoa Beach to the south and the growing suburbs of Orlando to the west, the space center is a kind of oasis for nature, Whitmore said.

"More and more, we're becoming an island in a sea of urban development," he said. "Had NASA not come along and inadvertently preserved the area for wildlife, we would not have it today."

Otago Daily Times, UK
Sarah SideySteve Creedy
07 July 2006

Multiple bird strike to an engine of a Dunedin-bound flight as it took off from Invercargill Airport yesterday did not hinder its landing at Dunedin International Airport, although emergency services were on stand-by.

The NZ631 flight, which had originated in Auckland, with 136 people on board, was scheduled to land at Dunedin airport at 9.10am. However, ice on the runway meant the Air New Zealand Boeing 737 was 45 minutes late departing Auckland as it waited for clearance in the Dunedin weather, Dunedin International Airport Air New Zealand duty manager Alistair Bevin said yesterday when contacted.

When clearance was not given, the flight was diverted to Invercargill, where it uplifted fuel. While taking off from Invercargill, the aircraft sustained a multiple bird strike but was able to continue to Dunedin, arriving at 11.57am.

“There was absolutely no danger whatsoever in continuing on to Dunedin and the alerting of the Airways Corporation which initiated emergency services was merely precautionary.

“The captain advised passengers the aircraft had sustained multiple bird strike and he had initiated appropriate procedures via the Airways Corporation,” Mr Bevin said.

About 11.30 am, three fire units from Mosgiel, Dunedin and Outram, three police units from Mosgiel and Dunedin, and a St John ambulance from Mosgiel were put on emergency stand-by at the airport, along with two of the airport’s crash fire units, Senior Sergeant Alistair Dickie, of Mosgiel, said yesterday.

“It was just a precautionary measure . . . It was a good exercise anyway just to bring the services together and see how they co-ordinated when they got there.” St John personnel assessed passengers on arrival, but all were fine, a spokeswoman said.

An engineering check of the aircraft when it arrived at the airport indicated some damage to instrumentation in one engine, Mr Bevin said.

Engineers and spare parts were sent from Christchurch to repair the aircraft, which returned to Auckland at 4pm. However, the about 90 passengers booked on that flight, which was scheduled to leave at 9.45am, were accommodated on other services, Mr Bevin said.

This was the second time in two weeks an aircraft had sustained bird strike.

“We have about a couple a year in Dunedin if you’re unlucky. This is the second in the last fortnight but this is our quota for the year,” Mr Bevin said.

Two outgoing flights were also delayed because of ice on the runway. A 6.50am flight to Wellington and Auckland was delayed until 7.50am and a 7.20am flight to Christchurch was delayed until 8.05am.

The Australian, UK
Steve Creedy, Aviation writer
07 July 2006

CSI-type forensic techniques are being developed to identify the Australian birds and other creatures that most commonly endanger aircraft.

And initial tests have surprised experts, by suggesting more species may be involved than previously thought.

Birds are a constant threat to planes. A strike can cost a major airline millions of dollars in repairs and lost operating time.

They worry manufacturers so much that special guns are used to propel dead birds at the windscreens and engines of new planes to test their impact.

More than 1300 aircraft bird strikes are officially reported in Australia each year and about 150 planes are damaged.

Australia has long had a list of airborne miscreants thought to pose the biggest problems for aircraft.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau ranks the white-bellied sea eagle as the most dangerous, followed by the Australian white ibis, the Australian wood duck, the galah, and the silver gull.

But the mess left by a strike means the culprit can go unidentified.

Scientists from the Australian Museum and Museum Victoria set out to test the feasibility of using forensic DNA testing to identify remains. About 250 sampling kits were distributed to aerodrome personnel around the country, and 29 bird-strike samples were returned.

These included blood, muscle, intestines, skin and feathers from strikes, which could not be identified using traditional methods.

The scientists found the ATSB's eight highest-risk species made up just 27 per cent of the sample tested - and that some "bird strikes" did not even involve birds.

They detected 20 different species, including three types of bats, using DNA identification of strike samples.

"This is not surprising, given the general nature of the list, which covered all of Australia," the scientists told ATSB.

"It would be overly ambitious to expect these species to occur as the top eight species in all parts of a country as large and climatically varied as Australia."

Because aircraft are exposed to extreme environments that can degrade DNA, the team also looked at how badly a sample could be damaged before analysis was impossible.

They concluded that strike samples should be refrigerated to ensure the greatest chance of a positive result.

The DNA analysis also revealed that identification by airport staff based on body parts might not be accurate.

Lancashire Evening Post, UK
07 June 2006

Families from Lancashire were left stranded in Greece for a day-and-a-half – due to a flock of birds.

The birds were sucked into the engine of the plane which was supposed to bring the holidaymakers home from Preveza airport, resulting in a delay of almost 35 hours.

Flight XLA 2081, a Boeing 737 operated by charter specialists Excel Airways, should have taken off at 11am local time on Sunday. It had landed on schedule and 187 passengers, the majority from Lancashire, Merseyside and Yorkshire, were ready to board when news of the bird strike filtered through.

Boeing engineers arrived on a flight from Gatwick to inspect the damage and carry out repairs.

Among the travellers was Evening Post features editor Peter Richardson and his wife, Joan.

He said: "As the day dragged on it became more and more clear how serious it was. Finally the holiday reps said it would be 12.30 in the morning before we were airborne and took us off to a couple of tavernas on Lefkas, so we were in a pretty good mood – until we got back to the airport and discovered the flight had been cancelled.

"That was bad enough but as people were making emergency phone calls home, the Greeks started turning the airport lights off and locking up."

Passengers, including several family groups with young children, were then taken back to Lefkas and put up in a hotel for the night. It was late on Monday afternoon before they learned that Boeing experts had studied camera images of the port side engine and ruled the plane was still unsafe.

Finally, a bigger plane – a Boeing 767 bound for Gatwick from nearby Corfu – was diverted to Preveza and then to Manchester, where it arrived shortly before 11pm on Monday.

Exhausted passengers were met by an Excel Airways representative and handed letters expressing "most sincere apologies" and blaming technical difficulties.

The letter suggested that customers should contact their own insurance companies, but EU rules state that anyone delayed for five hours or more is entitled to a refund from the airline of the full single fare.

Bird-plane Collisions on the Rise. ... 147 People Have Died in U.S. Since 1990.
Ben Wear, AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Austin, TX
Saturday, May 20, 2006

Stephen Becker couldn't have picked a better morning to fly than April 22. Clear, a gentle wind, temperature in the mid-70s.

Becker, an economic consultant who flies a single-engine Cirrus SR22, took off from Austin-Bergstrom International Airport's east runway. Less than a minute later, flying about 1,100 feet over one of the two landfills south of the airport, Becker saw the two turkey vultures whoosh right to left just in front of the propeller on his airplane's nose. His immediate reaction was relief at the near miss.

Stephen Becker thought his Cirrus SR22 was safe after two vultures whipped across his path in April, but one crashed into the left wing.

Then one of the birds smashed into the end of the left wing. Though a turkey vulture weighs at most 5 pounds, the impact shivered the plane and twisted it to the left. After a quick obscenity, Becker regained control and reported that the plane was in distress.

Given carte blanche to land on any runway, Becker and his wife, Emilie, pulled to a stop on the west runway minutes later. The outward 2 feet of the left wing were a crumpled mess.

"It was all smashed, with pieces of it flapping up and down," Becker said a couple of weeks after the incident. The plane is still grounded awaiting repair. "My experience is there is general bird activity around Austin. I have seen birds and had to dodge birds all around this airport, both north and south."

Reports of collisions between airplanes and birds, both locally and nationwide, have been increasing in recent years. Pilots of civilian aircraft reported 57,702 such collisions in the United States between 1990 and 2004, an average of about 3,850 a year. In 2004, there were 6,360 reported bird strikes, according to Federal Aviation Administration statistics.

Austin-Bergstrom, meanwhile, has gone from 14 reported bird strikes in 2000, its first full year of operation, to 46 in 2005. The airport has about 80,000 takeoffs and landings in a year.

Just seven of the strikes since May 1999 have been with what are classified as large birds, such as the luckless vulture that crossed paths with Becker. At least 70 percent of the 202 collisions since the airport's opening involved airliners or large cargo planes. None of the strikes have caused crashes or injuries.

But birds can and do bring down planes, occasionally even large ones. According to a recent report from the FAA, since 1990 there have been more than 120 aircraft taken down in the United States by bird strikes, killing at least 147 people. In 1995, for example, a U.S. Air Force E-3 AWACS plane taking off from Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage hit about three dozen geese and crashed, killing all 24 on board.

Experts point to several possible causes for the rise in bird strikes: more planes in the sky, increasing bird populations because of greater protections for migratory species, and a greater percentage of pilots reporting minor incidents with little damage (to the plane, at least).

Concern has increased to the point that the FAA, its Canadian counterpart Transport Canada, and the U.S. Air Force last year released a plan to develop a North American Bird Strike Advisory System to better warn pilots about the presence or likelihood of birds near airports. And in Central Texas, general aviation pilots in particular have been pushing for measures to limit their chances of hitting birds. About 10 pilots showed up this week at a meeting of the Airport Advisory Commission to ask for help with the problem.

"We want the landfills closed," said Jay Carpenter, president of the Texas Aviation Association, which is made up of private plane owners. Carpenter has video from four weekends in October 2004 showing up to 10 turkey vultures hanging out at Travis County Landfill about a mile south of the airport's west runway. "Getting rid of those landfills may not eliminate the bird strikes in the area. I doubt it will. But it would substantially reduce the risk."

No, it wouldn't, said Fletcher Kelly, a consulting engineer for IESI, owner of that landfill. That landfill opened in 2000, after Austin-Bergstrom opened, and has never accepted household garbage with the sort of organic, rotting goodies that would attract turkey vultures, Kelly said. Instead, the landfill takes in only construction and demolition debris. The City of Austin landfill just east of the IESI facility, which opened in the 1950s and for decades accepted organic waste, no longer does.

Yes, the IESI landfill has some birds, including vultures, that show up to "loaf," Kelly said, waiting for the next bit of carrion to turn up within nose-shot. The water and woods of Onion Creek lie just north of the landfill, Kelly pointed out, and Burleson Road, which runs between the creek and the airport, is a steady source of roadkill.

On two visits to the landfill over the past couple of weeks, the Statesman observed just two turkey vultures at the landfills. But both days were hot and still, conditions that Cliff Shackleford, an ornithologist with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, said renders vultures and other birds inactive. And by early May, most of the vultures that migrate from northern states to Mexico have already moved through Austin, leaving us with only our full-time resident vultures.

"Every day can be different," Shackleford said. He did say, however, that turkey vultures have a powerful sense of smell. Even one discarded sandwich, given time to rot, can attract them, he said.

But Austin-Bergstrom's statistics support the idea that birds are the problem, not the landfills. Of the 202 strikes reported since 1999, 22 were south of the east runway (where Becker took off) and 34 were south of the west runway (where he and the vulture hit). That means 72 percent of the strikes occurred north of the airport (miles from the landfills), where there are homes, businesses and, not coincidentally, the Colorado River.

Bodies of water, of course, attract birds, something that Austin-Bergstrom officials work to prevent on the 4,400-acre airport property. The airport has taken a number of measures to ward off birds and other wildlife, festooning roosting spots with plastic obstacles and wire netting, putting miniature speakers at various spots that play recordings of birds in distress and predator calls, and shooting propane cannons to scare birds away.

Becker, for his part, is sufficiently spooked by his encounter with the vulture that if he has to head west on a future trip, he'll ask the tower if he can make a loop to the east and north and then back to the west to avoid flying over the landfills.

"It's not something I want to do again," Becker said.

On the other hand, Becker notes that a friend of his who has a private jet had to dodge a whole flock of turkey vultures about a week after his collision. He was flying at 2,500 feet more than four miles north of the airport.

Defend America
4/27/06

Deployed airmen monitor the threat to aircraft from bird strikes, the B-52s and KC-135s can complete their missions.

By U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. Scott King
40th Air Expeditionary Group
OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM, April 27, 2006 -

The team of four airmen works to save lives, aircraft and money; they usually work behind the scenes, often unnoticed, until something goes wrong. They are vital to the mission of this forward operating location serving Operation Enduring Freedom, and are responsible for the Bird Aircraft Strike Hazard, or BASH, program.

"With minimal resources available, especially at a deployed location, we cannot afford to lose one aircraft to a bird strike." U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Roy Ollie.

The 40th Air Expeditionary Group safety office executes the BASH program 24/7 monitoring, evaluating, and where needed, eliminating the threat so that the B-52s and KC-135s based here can complete their combat missions.

The primary threats to bombers and refuelers launched and recovered from here are wimbrels, mynahs and egrets. "For an effective BASH program we need to ensure aircraft are safe to takeoff and land without the threat of a bird strike," said U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Roy Ollie, flight safety noncommissioned officer. "With minimal resources available, especially at a deployed location, we cannot afford to lose one aircraft to a bird strike."

The B-52s launched from here provide close air support for U.S. and coalition forces on the ground in Afghanistan. The KC-135s launched here provide the airborne refueling capability to ensure the B-52s can complete their combat missions.

The safety office uses a four-pronged approach to decrease the threat of further aircraft/bird strikes. There are six cannons on the airfield. The control tower or the safety office sets them off when needed to scare the birds out of the area. The safety office also uses pyrotechnic guns to scare birds away. Another approach is "pushing" or "directing" birds out of the area with the safety vehicle by approaching them and slamming doors, honking horns etc. The last approach is depredation or eliminating the birds with a shotgun.

The cost of a bird strike here can be deadly or, at a minimum, can create mission no-go. "Depending on where the strike occurs, it could cause an engine failure that leads to a loss of thrust during takeoff where the crew and aircraft would be lost," Ollie said.

"Another possibility is losing vital instruments or flight control systems because an engine driven generator or hydraulic pump isn't functioning also resulting in a catastrophic mishap."

Another factor to consider if a bird struck a plane is the non-mission capable status while engines are being replaced. Both the B-52 and KC-135 could be down for 24 hours or more, thus hampering our mission here of taking the aerial fight to the terrorists in Afghanistan and helping the people of that country."

B-52 pilots here know how important this often unseen program is to their mission.

"As a commander of a combat squadron, a solid BASH program offers my organizations two important benefits," said U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Mark Maryak, 20th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron commander. "First, avoiding bird strikes offers immediate benefits for the crews returning from extremely long duration sorties. If they were to encounter a bird strike while approaching the field, they would have to hold and accomplish a, time consuming, controllability check. Secondly, avoiding bird strikes keeps our B-52 fleet healthy. Because the maintainers do not have to spend time inspecting and fixing bird strike-related problems, they can prepare the our bombers for their next 'in country' sortie in minimum time - taking the fight to the enemy."

Laser beams sweeping airport runways to scare away birds could help civil aviation authorities beat a big threat to aircraft safety at take off and landing.

Around 50,000 bird strikes on civil aviation aircraft are recorded worldwide every year, with 11% affecting the flight and some of the incidents leading to fatal crashes. The threat is greatest when birds crash into windscreens or are sucked into jet engines, but a French idea to be unveiled in the Middle East later this year could help solve the problem.

Lord Ingénierie has developed an automatic laser system to tackle the threat posed by birds to aircraft, and the TOM500 will be introduced at the Airport Build & Supply Exhibition in Dubai June.

The system uses a green laser beam, as research by ornithologists from the French civil aviation authority (DGAC) found that birds’ eyes are more sensitive to green light, and is so far-reaching that a single unit can cover a runway up to two kilometres long.

Birds flying near runways and interfering with aeroplanes’ take-off and landing are a potentially deadly problem for airports. According to figures released by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) in 2003, air accidents caused by bird strikes had up until then resulted in the loss of 400 lives and the destruction of 420 aircraft. Ninety per cent of all birdstrikes happen at or around airports.

Civil aviation officials and other visitors to the Airport Build & Supply Exhibition, will be able to see the laser in action as technicians from Lord Ingénierie will give demonstrations using a smaller hand-held version.

Project manager Alain Danielou believes the Middle East will become an important market for the new TOM500 system and says the exhibition is vital for securing business in the region, “This is brand new technology and totally different to traditional methods of dealing with birds at airports such as acoustic and pyrotechnic systems. The Dubai exhibition is a great opportunity to convince visitors of the TOM500’s benefits and make contact with potential customers. Many major airports in the Middle East are near the coast and airports close to the sea tend to have particular problems with birds.”

Lord Ingénierie took around one-and-a-half years to develop the TOM500 system after being awarded the contract by DGAC. The system has been on test for more than a year at Montpellier Airport in France. During this time there have been no collisions with birds or any sign that birds are becoming accustomed to the laser. The product went on the market in 2005 and the company received their first order in January this year to install it at another French airport.

The TOM500 laser automatically begins scanning runways at regular intervals on pre-programmed paths once light levels go below a certain point. Birds are frightened away by the stick-like effect of the laser. The beam is close to the ground, causes no visual problems for pilots and is harmless to eyes and skin.

Danielou said, “The problem that birds pose to aircraft at night has until recently been underestimated because of the assumption that birds are roosting. However birds are easily disturbed and according to the ICAO forty per cent of bird collisions happen at night. The TOM500 is particularly useful in the Middle East as, for much of the year, the light fades at around 6pm and there are 12 hours of darkness. We hope to find a regional distributor for the product at the Airport Build & Supply Exhibition.”

Taking place from June 5 – 7, 2006 at Airport Expo Dubai, the Airport Build & Supply Exhibition is expected to attract more than 400 of the world’s leading airport and aviation suppliers, who are aiming to capitalise on more than US$ 40 billion worth of airport developments currently taking place across the Middle East.

A BIRD striking an engine of an Air Pacific aircraft in mid-flight cost the airline $1million and disrupted flights to Auckland, Melbourne and Brisbane.

The bird strike affected more than 1500 people and as a result extra flights had to be organised. A statement from the company's executive office said the Boeing 767-300ER flight was en-route to Melbourne, Australia on Wednesday morning.

It said there were 130 passengers on board at the time but no one was injured.

The airline statement said after the bird strike the performance of the engine deteriorated and the captain immediately returned the aircraft to Nadi, arriving at 6.35pm without incident after taking-off 15 minutes earlier.

"Examination of the engine revealed eight fan blades were bent and damaged by the bird strike. The bird passed through the engine and from feathers recovered is suspected to be large, probably a hawk," the airline said. It said passengers were accommodated overnight in Nadi and transferred via Auckland to Melbourne on a flight that left at 8.45am last Thursday. It said that flight was destined for Tokyo, Japan, and Tokyo destined passengers were transferred via Sydney on the same day.

The company said replacement fan blades were brought into Fiji last Thursday afternoon and overnight the engine was reassembled and rebalanced.

It said the aircraft was flown to Sydney last Friday where an engine replacement was done and after checks the B767 returned on Saturday. It then departed for Tokyo that night and returned to Fiji at 9.30am yesterday morning to resume normal scheduled operations.

Pigeon brings down RAF helicopter Chinook helicopter

A pigeon is believed to have forced the Chinook to land A Royal Air Force helicopter was forced to land in a field in the Scottish Borders after it collided with a bird. The 10-tonne Chinook suffered a cracked windscreen when it was hit by what was thought to have been a pigeon. The two pilots - believed to have been on a training exercise - opted to land in a field in Yarrowford, Selkirk, as a precautionary measure. The battle helicopter was grounded for about four hours while a repair team flew in from RAF Leuchars. The Chinook is now back in full operation again following the incident on 15 February.

A spokesman for the RAF said: "A Chinook was on a routine run when it encountered a bird strike. It's a well-known hazard in aviation. "They had a precautionary landing in a field and a team from Leuchars flew down and fixed it." The four crew are thought to have been on a training mission from RAF Odiham in Hampshire.

The Chinook helicopter has been deployed in the Falklands War and the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Love is on the ground at Denver International Airport - among rabbits, at least, and that's a dangerous situation for aircraft.

The wascally wabbits, as Elmer Fudd might say, attract raptors that can cause millions of dollars of damage when the birds of prey collide with aircraft.

Typically the most expensive damage occurs when the animals are sucked into jet engines. Damage to airplane windshields and wings is also a problem. "As fast as those airplanes are going, even if you have a medium-sized bird, that's a pretty big force that can cause damage," said Mike Yeary, U.S. Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services.director for ColoradoThey may look innocent, but bunnies have proliferated into a bird-luring problem that threatens planes at Denver s airport.

Last year, animal strikes at DIA caused more than $4 million in damage to commercial aircraft. Rabbits also attract coyotes, at least five of which were struck by planes at DIA last year. "Those jet engines are so powerful, there's always a possibility of them being sucked in as well," Yeary said. Animals on the airfield, including runways, are the most pressing safety concern. The airport contracts with Wildlife Services to secure that area and make it less hospitable to wildlife.

One strategy is to shoot off a type of fireworks that frightens birds away. Wildlife Services also kill rabbits in locations where they are deemed an immediate safety hazard. Still, the rabbits proliferate. "Their numbers around here have really gone up," said Wildlife Services wildlife biologist Kendra Cross. Animals that are prey "typically go in a seven-year cycle where they will proliferate." Bunnies at DIA can cause property damage when they nibble on engine wires of parked cars. DIA also has used a private contractor to relocate the rabbits.

Mayor John Hickenlooper "obviously wanting the airport to deal with this issue, also asked that they do it in a humane manner without killing the rabbits," said spokeswoman Lindy Eichenbaum Lent. Bird strikes with aircraft are estimated to cost civil aviation more than $300 million a year nationally. "If a large aircraft were to hit a large hawk or an owl, especially during a takeoff or landing, that could possibly cause - at minimum, damage - and in the worst possible scenario, a crash," Yeary said. "When you get flocks of them they could possibly clog up the jet engines."

The national Bird Strike Committee USA is devoted to dealing with the problem and meets annually with Bird Strike Committee Canada. According to the U.S. committee's website, more than 6,300 bird strikes were reported for U.S. civil aircraft in 2004. "It's something we obviously are always concerned with, and whatever airports can do to minimize the potential of bird strikes is certainly something from our perspective we're in favor of," said Air Line Pilots Association spokesman Steve Derebey. "

Most of these engines are built so that they can withstand small bird strikes. . Generally the bird doesn't come out on the winning end," Derebey said. But, "there have been instances where larger birds knock out windshields and do all kinds of significant damage. "

Staff writer Kelly Yamanouchi can be reached at 303-820-1488 or at kyamanouchi@denverpost.com.

A longtime Duluth Airport Authority employee was injured Monday when a noisemaker fired from a shotgun to scare geese from a runway apparently malfunctioned, Duluth police said.

John Lonetto, 41, airfield foreman and 20-year airport authority employee, was in good condition at St. Mary's Medical Center on Monday afternoon.

Brian Ryks, executive director of the airport authority, said Lonetto and a co-worker were using pyrotechnics to scare about 20 Canada geese from the approach end of Runway 21, the cross-wind runway on the northeast section of the Duluth airport. Ryks said the problem is worse this time of year because the birds are migrating. The airport has a permit to use noisemaking shells, which are fired from a shotgun to scare the birds from runways, said Duluth Police Lt. Patricia Behning.

The shells make a sound like a gun blast, but the noise occurs at the end of the projectile's trajectory rather than at the beginning, like a regular shotgun shell. Police compared the device to a bottle rocket with a delayed-action fuse. Ryks said Lonetto's co-worker fired one round, also known as a "bird popper," from a 12-gauge shotgun. The trigger was pulled to fire a second shot, but nothing immediately happened. "He thought it was a dud, so he opened the shotgun to remove the shell casing. Evidently, the round was still in the shotgun, and it backfired out the back end of the shotgun and grazed Mr. Lonetto in the stomach," Ryks said.

Lonetto and the co-worker, who Ryks declined to name, are both "excellent employees" who have done "an outstanding job of maintaining our airfield over a number of years," Ryks said.

After police complete their investigation, Ryks said the airport authority will evaluate whether it needs to change its methods of removing birds from runways.

Copyright 2005 Associated Press

Storks pose bird-strike safety worry in Thailand

Open-billed storks roost on tree branches by Suvarnabhumi airport, highlighting the potential safety threat of bird-strike for planes landing and taking off. - Sarot Meksophawannakul

One day after deciding to scrap a planned marathon run due to safety worries at the new airport, the Transport Ministry now has a new concern _ open-billed storks. Up to 5,000 open-billed storks have been found in three areas near Suvarnabhumi airport in Samut Prakan's Bang Phli district and this has become another worry for the ministry, which is in charge of preparations for a landing test on Sept 29 with Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra on board.

Deputy Transport Minister Chainant Chareonsiri said all measures to make sure the first landing goes smoothly must be in place. But he said he was worried about the birds which could obstruct the landing test. Thai Airways International will put the prime minister, cabinet members and other key officials on board an Airbus 340-600 and land at Suvarnabhumi on Sept 29. Another plane, a Boeing 747-400, carrying guests and the press will follow shortly after the first plane lands.

Gen Chainant said he would direct planes to fly around the airport to drive the birds away. The order comes a day after Transport Minister Pongsak Raktapongpaisal decided to cancel a mini-marathon on Sept 29 out of concern that security officials would not be able to handle the runners or other people wanting to get their first glimpse of the new airport.

C-130 transport planes have been mentioned as the aircraft to be used for the bird-scaring mission. Surapol Duangkhae, secretary-general of Wildlife Fund of Thailand, was surprised by the decision, saying using the planes to scare off the birds was not the best solution.

Long-term measures were necessary to prevent birds getting in the way of planes and there must be an agency to handle the problem, he said.

Areas near the Gulf of Thailand are a sanctuary for local and migratory birds escaping cold weather in the northern hemisphere.

Driving the birds out by flying planes around could annoy people who live nearby, he said.

Plan to shift airport runway, adding traffic over Tinicum, is off the drawing board.

Residents of Delaware and Delaware County worried about runway expansion plans at Philadelphia International Airport can thank birds in the Heinz National Wildlife Refuge for prompting changes in what's under study to try to reduce flight delays.

Managers of the city-owned airport and the Federal Aviation Administration said yesterday that their long-range study of ways to reduce delays is focused on plans to realign the airport's long east-west runways that are parallel to the Delaware River, and build a new landing strip along the river's northern bank.

No longer under consideration are ideas the airport first floated in a master plan more than four years ago that troubled many residents of Delaware County. Those ideas would have turned the runways at a 45-degree angle, aligning them to the northeast, so that more takeoffs and landings would take place over the Heinz refuge in Tinicum Township, the officials said.

Susan McDonald, an FAA environmental protection specialist who is leading the agency's study of the master plan, said in a briefing at the airport's FAA control tower that the birds in the Heinz refuge could create a safety hazard if airplanes taking off were to hit them. Airports, including Philadelphia's, often have to devise ways to scare birds away from runways to avoid the hazard they pose to planes, but that can't be done in a national refuge, McDonald said.

The runway realignment project is at least a decade away from completion. Airport officials estimated the work would cost $1.5 billion to $2 billion and could involve replacing some of the airport's terminal buildings and the UPS sorting facility in the airport's southwest corner. In the meantime, the airport is planning to extend one shorter north-south runway as another way to reduce delays.

Dozens of other ideas to realign the runways to help speed up air traffic also have been eliminated because they could require relocating portions of Interstate 95 or because they could disrupt shipping traffic on the Delaware, the FAA officials said.

The FAA and the airport will reveal more details about their environmental impact study, which is scheduled for completion in December 2007, in a series of public meetings across the region in late September.

City Aviation Director Charles J. Isdell said Philadelphia International, with just 2,300 acres, is one of the nation's most compact airports, limiting how it can expand. At the same time, the launch of service by Southwest Airlines last year pushed up passenger traffic and flights to record levels after other airlines matched Southwest's low fares. Since 1996, Philadelphia has moved from being the nation's 24th-busiest airport to being No. 17.

"This should be good news, moving up the ranks," Isdell said. "But the downside is delays." The airport was in fourth place in 2004 for the most delays at the nation's 33 busiest airports.

Gib Rokich, a duty manager at Salt Lake City International Airport, scares off birds from flight paths using a 12-gauge shotgun with a dummy shell noisemaker on Wednesday. It's bird migration time, and the airport is gearing up its efforts to keep birds away from planes' flight paths. (Leah Hogsten/The Salt Lake Tribune)

European starlings take flight from their perch along the fence of the SLC International Airport on Wednesday. According to birdstrike.org, "Starlings are 'feathered bullets,' having a body density 27 percent higher than herring gulls . . . [they] can be a great hazard to aircraft." (Leah Hogsten/The Salt Lake Tribune)

Tony Fizer was on final approach to Vancouver International Airport when his SkyWest jet hit a goose.

"Things happened so fast," says Fizer, SkyWest's chief pilot in Salt Lake City. "I remember a blurry thing out of the corner of my eye and then a thud on the nose. It ended up impaling itself on one of my instruments." Fortunately, he was able to land without instruments. The plane suffered only minor damage, and Fizer was on his way again the next day.

Bird strikes are increasing at airports as passenger numbers climb, the aviation industry installs quieter engines on newer planes and wildlife populations swell. That's why airports such as Salt Lake City International are heeding Federal Aviation Administration calls to stage aggressive wildlife control measures, especially during bird migration seasons.

That season is upon us, says Gib Rokich, an airport duty manager who regularly makes rounds of the airport and its environs to shoo birds - and an occasional deer, fox, dog, skunk and even a cougar - away from the runways. During the next two months, the canals and wetlands that flank the airport will host an estimated 500,000 wildfowl, elevating the chance of jet engines sucking in birds, and birds crashing into aircraft.

Rokich and his crew will be out from dawn to dusk "hazing" the birds by firing propane cannons, shooting 12-gauge shotguns armed with M-80 firecrackers, launching fireworks-type "screamers" and even shooting paintball guns to keep away pelicans, geese, ducks, gulls, swans, sparrows, starlings, hawks, vultures and any other creature that might wander into the flight path.

It's serious business. Civil aircraft have reported 59,196 wildlife strikes from 1990 to 2004, 57,702 of them birds. The strikes forced 4,699 aircraft either to make precautionary landings, abort takeoffs or experience engine shutdowns, according to FAA statistics.

For the same period, FAA data show reported losses from bird strikes totaled 277,565 hours of aircraft downtime and $181.6 million in monetary losses. Though mammals accounted for only a small fraction of the animal strikes, airlines reported they accounted for 255,455 hours of aircraft downtime and $29.9 million in monetary losses. Even bats have caused problems, resulting in 72 hours of downtime and $3.1 million in losses.

Utah reported 647 bird strikes and 12 run-ins with other animals from 1990 to 2004. Airport officials didn't quantify the financial losses, but noted that no matter what the report says, it's an underestimation. The FAA doesn't require the reports and there is no uniformity across airports. Rokich says only about 20 percent of all bird and animal strikes are reported. But Salt Lake City International has become so interested in the subject they now report any dead animal found near planes as strikes, and they send off blood swabs and feathers to the Smithsonian Institution, where scientists dedicated to aviation-related bird suppression type the animals' DNA and feathers against a growing aviation-related database. Balance of nature: Salt Lake City International is next to the Great Salt Lake, surrounded by canals and wetlands, havens for various types of birds. The U.S. Geological Survey says the Great Salt Lake shelters the world's largest migratory staging population of Wilson's phalarope, which number 500,000. The white pelican breeding population of 18,000 is one of the three largest colonies in Western North America. The 160,000 breeding adult California gulls are the most in the world. Private duck clubs, where marshy ground is nurtured, account for 20,000 nearby acres. The airport itself owns more than 400 acres of wetlands. The nearby Salt Lake County landfill is seagull heaven.

Foxes, while considered a hazard, eat the pocket gophers whose mounds dot the airport's environs. Rokich says he's never gotten a report of coyotes at the airport but wouldn't be surprised if they're lurking about.

"Pilots report all sorts of things - there's a wolf on the runway, there's a fox on the runway, there's a dog on the runway," he says.

A main source of trouble has been the airport's Wingpointe Golf Course water hazards. Fish from the Surplus Canal got into the course pond and attracted large populations of white pelicans and Canada geese. The pond was drained two years ago and now is a sand trap, but the geese persist because they imprint on their birthplace and are drawn back.

"Most waterfowl respond really well to hazing," Rokich says. Not geese. Because explosives tend to throw golfers off their game, bird suppression ordnance on the course is limited to paintball guns.

The paint pellets pack a ping, and while many of them just pop off the birds unbroken, "If you see any green geese around . . . ," Rokich says.

If a bird is really, really stubborn and won't leave, Rokich and his crew have a kill permit. "But that's a last resort."

Man vs. nature: The FAA wants to curtail wildlife strikes with aircraft by providing practical solutions as well as real-time critical information to pilots and airport managers. The agency has asked airport operators to notify it if land-use changes around airports could create wildlife hazards, and recommends no "wildlife attractants" within 10,000 feet of runways or within five miles of approach or departure corridors.

For many airports, that's impossible.

John F. Kennedy International in New York is on Jamaica Bay, near two national bird refuges and beneath two major bird migration routes. In 1975, a flock of gulls smashed into a Douglas DC-10 on takeoff. The plane crashed and burned, injuring 32 of the 139 passengers. That airport now employs falcons and falconers to keep the gulls under control. Seattle-Tacoma International Airport has problems with raptors including red-tailed hawks, Cooper's hawks, kestrels, sharp-shinned hawks, ospreys, bald eagles and turkey vultures. A full-time wildlife biologist is working to capture and relocate all immature and migrant hawks.

About 90 percent of all bird strikes in the United States are by species federally protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, according to Bird Strike Committee USA.

International cooperation: Each year, public and military officials from around the world gather for the joint conference of Bird Strike Committee USA and Bird Strike Committee Canada. Highlights include scientific presentations on bird behavior, reports on the BIRDRAD and BIRDAR radar detection systems, pyrotechnics training and pleas from the Air Line Pilots Association and the Air Transport Association for greater efforts to control bird strikes and other animal hazards at airports.

At this year's conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, representatives of the two nations proposed a strategic plan to consolidate civil and military efforts to develop a North American bird strike advisory system. The five-year, $16 million budget would only be a starter fund for what the officials called "an evolving project and system."

Meanwhile in Salt Lake City, SkyWest's Tony Fizer, who also flies KUTV's news helicopter, isn't worried. He knows the air-traffic controllers will do their jobs.

"When there are birds in the area," he says, "the tower always tells us."

AIR CORPS helicopters are being used to track Irish pigeon races, amid growing concern about potentially catastrophic collisions involving the 110kph birds at Dublin airport.

There have been four incidents involving racing pigeons at the airport since 2002, two involving planes landing and two taking off.

A Ryanair Boeing 737 flight to Bristol was forced to turn back and land on one engine after one incident. Now a safety audit of pigeon race routes is being undertaken by Tom Kelly, a Cork-based consultant ornithologist with the Dublin Airport Authority. Using an Air Corps helicopter he has monitored two races this year - one on May 7 involving 30,000 pigeons released near Youghal and an August 20 race with start releases in Fermoy, Mallow and Thurles. The birds were returning to Northern Ireland.

"The reason we are so concerned about racing pigeons is that they fly in compact flocks," he said. "They are also heavy, 400 grammes plus. The risk of damage climbs very rapidly in direct proportion to the weight of the bird." Racing pigeons are immune to normal bird-scaring techniques used at airports and their low flight paths means they tend to hit planes at the most vulnerable phases of flight: take-off and landing.

Kelly said: "These birds are completely naive as to the danger of aircraft. They simply have one object in mind - to get home." His study of race flight paths began after the strike on the Ryanair flight in 2003. The plane was hit by a section of 21,000 pigeons from Northern Ireland which had been released in Arklow. The captain managed to land on one engine without any injury to the 108 passengers and crew, but other flights that suffered racing-pigeon strikes have not been so lucky. When an executive jet hit a flock near Milan's Linate airport in 2003 it crashed and all aboard were killed. p align=justify>Since 1978, pigeons have also been responsible for the loss of two Boeing 737s, one in Belgium and the other in Ethiopia. They have also brought down a number of military aircraft, including F-16 Fighting Falcons in Holland and Taiwan.

Since the Ryanair incident, traditional pigeon-race start venues in Arklow and Wexford have been banned. The National Bird Hazard Committee called in pigeon fanciers' representatives - the Irish Homing Union and the Northern Ireland Pigeon Racing Association - and it was agreed that race starts should be moved to Tramore, Co Waterford and points further west.

The air accident report of the investigation into the Ryanair bird strike, published last week, said that it was made clear to pigeon fanciers that if the westward shift did not solve the problem then "more formal, perhaps regulatory methods" might have to be introduced. There is no legislation in Ireland or Britain governing racing pigeons. Rules drawn up by Britain's Royal Pigeon Racing Association, which governs the sport on both sides of the border, ban starts within eight miles of an airport.

Kelly said he could monitor the races from above because racing pigeons tend to fly below 300 ft. His study indicates that westerly race starts may keep the birds away from Dublin as they head north.

"Though the sample size is small to date, the results are very promising," he said.

A jet emergency at the Portland International Airport Tuesday prompted authorities to take a closer look at a dangerous and fast-growing bird population at the terminal.

A Southwest Airline 737 sucked a bird into an engine on takeoff, causing a tire blowout and forcing an emergency landing. No one was hurt but authorities said the incident highlighted a major risk at the airport - an overpopulation of starlings.

The glass canopy constructed over the passenger drop-off area back in 1998 has become a perfect breeding area for the small, black birds. At last count, about 900 starlings were living in the tall, rain-free perch.

Airport officials held a meeting Wednesday morning to discuss the bird boom and possible techniques researchers have looked at, to encourage the birds to move elsewhere.

"They looked at hazing, electric shock strips, spikes, chemicals, compressed air devices, noise generators, and scare tactics, including plastic owls, snakes, balloons." said airport project manager Stan Snyder. "They looked at falconry, they looked at trapping and they even looked at lasers."

Airport authorities eventually agreed to buy special netting and stretch it all across the canopy, spanning about 2.5 acres in size.

The plan is for the netting to be in place by Thanksgiving and the project will cost about $400,000 - paid for by airport passenger fees.

(KGW reporter Jack Penning also contributed to this article.)

BRUSSELS — An SN Brussels Airlines (SNBA) flight was forced to return to Zaventem Airport shortly after takeoff on Tuesday after a bird flew into one of the plane's engines.

"It was a precautionary landing and the passengers were never at any moment in danger," a spokesman for the airline SNBA said.

The four-engine Avro RJ-85-toestel had just taken off from the Brussels international airport and was flying to Venice with 68 passengers when a bird was caught in one of its engines.

The pilot noticed the fault and decided to return to the airport immediately. "Normally, a four-engine plane can fly perfectly with three engines, but it is safer of course to turn back and verify if there is not too much damage," spokesman Geert Sciot said.

The spokesman also said passengers were informed and remained claim throughout the incident, newspaper 'Het Gazet van Antwerpen' reported.

The landing was defined as precautionary rather than an emergency. Nevertheless, standard measures were taken and firefighters dispatched to await the plane's arrival.

Airlines are confronted every year with several "bird strikes", most of which occur along the African coast where it is difficult to drive the birds away.

At Zaventem, like most other airports, a special 'bird patrol' is used to hunt the bird populations away from the runways. Among the tools used are cars with "frightening" noises, Sciot said.

The 68 passengers on the Venice-bound flight were forced to transfer to another plane and departed again at about 11.30am.

[Copyright Expatica News 2005]

Hitting a deer on the road is not an unusual occurrence, but hitting a deer on a runway is. That's what happened last night with a U.S. Airways commuter plane landing at Watertown Airport. The plane, a Beech 1900, had hit a deer on a remote section of the runway around 10:40 last night. None of the passengers on the plane were hurt, but they were confused about what happened.

"We were landing and didn't even know anything had happened, heard a little bit of a thud and really didn't know what that was.

They got the plane stop and the pilot came out to let us know that we hit a deer on the runway." said Jamie Zehr a passenger on the plane.

Passengers were taken back to the terminal earlier, but had to wait until the plane was towed to retrieve their luggage. The plane was towed back to the terminal building for mechanics to examine it later today.

Landing on Rikers Island is a bad twist of fate, even if you are a flock of Canada geese.

For the second year in a row, federal wildlife officials netted and gassed more than 200 geese on Rikers Island, best known for hosting a city jail.

They said it's a safety issue. Geese that fly into airplanes taking off or landing at nearby LaGuardia Airport can cause a hazard for passengers.

But animal advocates say there are better, more humane ways to keep the birds away. "You can take the birds off Rikers Island but they are going to come right back if you don't attack the bigger picture," said Gary Kaskel of United Action for Animals. "The entire animal protection community is saddened that this city must continue to kill Canada geese on Rikers Island due to the failure of the city to implement the area-wide nonlethal program discussed an entire year ago to solve this problem."

Kaskel said the city should be oiling geese eggs in a 5-mile radius of the airport, not just in a few nests on Rikers Island.

"We consider this a safety issue," said Pasquale DiFulco of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates LaGuardia Airport. "Since 2002, there have been 131 bird strikes. It's obviously something that deserves our attention."

The Port Authority contracts with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to get rid of the geese, which gather each year around June and July on Rikers.

According to experts, the birds seek refuge on the island during their molting season when they are not able to fly. "They go from where they are nesting to a place they feel a little safer," said Richard Chipman, a wildlife biologist and New York State Director of USDA Wildlife Services.

This month, the USDA rounded up about 288 geese - about half the number they gathered last year from Rikers Island.

The geese are sent to a poultry plant and then distributed to food kitchens. This year the USDA will sample the goose meat and test it for heavy metals and pesticides.

A group of city, Port Authority and federal officials have talked about taking other measures to get rid of the geese. For example, they will plant tall fescue grass on parts of the island because geese don't like it. But Kaskel said they dropped the ball in getting a permit to oil goose eggs in the 5-mile radius of the airport. Oiling prevents the eggs from hatching, cutting down the number of goslings.

February 1, 2005

A dead hedgehog and a flock of seagulls cost France 3 million euros after runway mishap MARSEILLE, France (AFP) - A dead hedgehog which was at the origin of an airport mishap involving an Air France passenger plane nearly seven years ago has ended up costing the French government more than three million euros (four million dollars) in a court ruling.

On March 22, 1998, the hedgehog's carcass was lying at the end of a runway at the airport in the southern town of Marseille, attracting around 20 seagulls which were picking at it, oblivious to the Air France Airbus A320 roaring down on them ahead of take off.

The plane's right engine sucked in the flock of hapless birds, destroying it and forcing the pilot to abort the take-off at the very last moment.

In its judgement [sic], the court in Marseille ruled that the French government was responsible for keeping the runways clear of such perils and that its staff at the airport should have noticed "such a large group of birds" in the path of the jet. It ordered the government to pay 850,000 euros to Air France over the incident, and 2.3 million euros to five insurance companies that had paid out after the accident.

Copyright © 2005 Agence France Presse.

January 15, 2005

Navy to break eggs, move adult albatrosses
By Jan TenBruggencate

The bird may have looked like a goose to the pilots, but what flew into a jet engine over Chicago was a double-crested cormorant, a bird rarely involved in midair collisions with airplanes.

Until 1994, cormorants, found from Alaska to the Bahamas, were federally listed as an endangered species. Their numbers have rebounded--so much so, some fishermen now consider them a nuisance.

And perhaps pilots should, too.

At a briefing Friday by a wildlife expert, American Airlines officials were told cormorants have a particularly dense body with the potential to do as much damage to an airline engine as a Canada goose, which can be more than triple the weight of a 5-pound cormorant.

"Our expert said that a cormorant is chunkier, meatier and has more bones than a looser, watery bird," said American Airlines spokeswoman Mary Frances Fagan. "Once ingested by the engine, it would have a harder time getting through the fan blades of the turbine."

Tiny bones and feathers recovered from the damaged left engine of an American jetliner that made an emergency return to O'Hare International Airport on Thursday matched a cormorant corpse--minus one wing--found outside a home in the Northwest Side's Edison Park neighborhood, the Federal Aviation Administration and American said Friday.

"We're still not sure if it was more than one cormorant," Fagan added.

Aircraft engines are only certified to withstand a four-pound bird, said Richard Dolbeer, national coordinator for airport safety with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

"Cormorants are flocking birds and usually the planes hit more than one," Dolbeer said. "Thank God both engines did not ingest birds in the Chicago incident."

Collisions reported to the FAA between aircraft and cormorants are less common than encounters with other birds. Only 34 incidents have been reported since 1990 nationwide and none occurred in Illinois.

By comparison, 190 American kestrels, 151 gulls and 72 Canada geese have been struck by planes in Illinois since 1994, FAA records show.

After the American McDonnell Douglas Super 80 landed at O'Hare on one engine, a USDA wildlife biologist made the positive ID in a hangar that doubled as a morgue. His assessment corrected the initial report of the pilots, who radioed O'Hare controllers that they encountered a flock of Canada geese and the No. 1 engine caught fire after ingesting at least one bird.

"The general body shape of the cormorant looks similar to a goose, especially at high speed," said Glen Kruse, manager of restoration ecology at the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. "I doubt a pilot would know the difference between the birds."

The FAA said the airplane was at 3,000 feet and climbing fast when the pilots encountered crossing traffic.

The cormorant flight plan suggested to Kruse that a colony of birds was likely migrating.

Copyright © 2004, Chicago Tribune

From correspondents in Bangkok, August 2, 2004

A UNITED Airlines jet aborted takeoff at Bangkok International Airport early today after a bird got caught in one of its engines, and four passengers suffered minor injuries as they evacuated the plane, the company said.

Flight UA838 headed for Tokyo also "experienced a tyre[sic] blow-out" during the aborted takeoff, United Airlines said in a statement. It wasn't clear what caused the tyre[sic] to burst.

"The takeoff was aborted due to a bird ingested into one of the engines," the company said. "For the safety of passengers and crew members, the pilot activated an immediate evacuation.

"The Boeing 747's two pilots, 15 crew members and 346 passengers slid down evacuation chutes onto the tarmac, the statement said.

Airport to keep out animals Fence to prevent runway collisions at Toledo Express

By ROBIN ERB
BLADE STAFF WRITER

A 10-foot fence will replace the six-foot fence that Toledo Express Airport has around most of its property.

Consider the 200-pound white-tailed deer grazing along an airport runway. Now enter into the picture a jet aircraft rolling by at 160 mph.

"It's not something that the aviation industry wants to promote," said Richard Dolbeer, national coordinator for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's wildlife program.

( Photo by THE BLADE/ALLAN DETRICH )

"In the perspective of all things, it's still extremely safe to fly," he said. "But [collisions with wildlife are] costing the industry a lot of money, not to mention the loss of life."

According to a preliminary report by Mr. Dolbeer's office, the air industry recorded 52,493 aircraft-animal "strikes" between 1990 and 2003 at the nation's airports, resulting in nine deaths and 153 injuries.

Now armed with $800,000 from the Federal Aviation Administration, Toledo Express Airport will erect a 10-foot high, chain-link fence around airport property to keep the area's wildlife, particularly deer, from the runways.

Another $980,000 for fencing will come from the Ohio Air National Guard, based at the airport, although Guard officials were focusing on federally mandated security upgrades rather than wildlife issues, Lt. Col. Carole Allan said.

Stretching about six miles, the fence will be topped by several strands of barbed wire.

A six-foot fence now encircles much of the property, but deer have jumped over it or squeezed through openings, Paul Toth, airport director, said.

"They're kind of like mice. They can get into a very small area," Mr. Toth said. "It's not a huge problem …[but] there have been instances where a plane has had to abort a take-off."

At Toledo Express, just north of the Oak Openings Preserve Metropark, there have been no damage reports or injuries because of wildlife strikes in recent years, though pilots from time to time have reported minor collisions with birds, Mr. Toth said.

The fence, he said, is a preventative measure.

Located in Sandusky, Mr. Dolbeer's USDA office is charged with a national database that records wildlife "strikes" with aircraft each year and tries to find ways to keep the nation's air traffic from meeting with its unsuspecting wildlife. By far, he said, most of the strikes, 51,154, were of birds, and they caused eight fatalities. But in the same 14-year period, there were 574 reports of white-tail deer colliding with planes, leading to 131,749 out-of-service hours and destroying 16 aircraft.

In all, those collisions with deer cost the aviation industry at least $21.6 million, including the cost to repair damage, pay for stalled air crews, and put grounded passengers in motels, among other things.

Far worse was the human cost: collisions with deer killed one person and injured at least 20 people.

"At most airports there's a lot of open space, and it's grassy … [and] they have a series of retention ponds and ditches," said Jon Cepek, a wildlife biologist at the Sandusky USDA office. "Animals are looking for four things - food, water, space, and shelter - and you're providing three of them at an airport."

Contact Robin Erb at:
robinerb@theblade.com or 419-724-6133.

The New York Times, June 25, 2004

Give Geese a Chance? That's Unlikely Near La Guardia, Officials Say
By MICHAEL LUO

In this time of trouble in faraway places, the man-versus-fowl struggle brewing on Rikers Island may seem trivial. But its implications are dire for a certain flock.

On one side are geese, slender-necked and given to relieving themselves liberally, who like where they are living, a stone's throw away from La Guardia Airport. On the other is a worried band of federal officials who believe the geese are too close to planes carrying millions of passengers in and out of one of the nation's busiest airports.

History teaches that these things hardly ever end well - for the birds at least. Indeed, by the end of the day today, barring a last minute reprieve, 495 Canada geese will be on their way to an upstate slaughterhouse, Port Authority and federal wildlife officials said yesterday.

The birds, which are molting now and flightless, will be herded into a corral, and then into crates. After they are killed and processed upstate, they will be donated as food to two homeless shelters.

Geese have been flocking to the 415-acre island for years. Across the East River at La Guardia, where they often end up, members of a wildlife management team have tried all sorts of ways to scare them away, including pyrotechnics and the draining of standing water. But little had been tried up to this point on Rikers.

In September, however, five geese collided with an American Airlines flight bound for Chicago, causing the right engine to fail and forcing the pilot to make an emergency landing at Kennedy International. It was the most serious of seven instances at La Guardia in which geese have run into planes since the beginning of 2001, said Bill Cahill, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Every year, birds collide with planes at least 6,000 times across the country. But Canada geese pose a special danger because of their size. A 12-pound bird hitting an airplane taking off at 150 miles per hour produces a force equivalent to dropping a 1,000-pound weight onto the jet from a height of 10 feet, said Richard Dolbeer of the United States Department of Agriculture.

Even so, several advocacy groups, including one from Virginia called GeesePeace, have been trying to halt the roundup, placing calls to members of Congress and meeting with the Port Authority and the federal wildlife biologists. They argue that techniques like using a different type of ground covering at Rikers - ivy or a shrubbery that repels geese - should be tried first.

But Richard Chipman, director of wildlife services for the U.S.D.A. in New York, says those are longer-term solutions and that immediate action is needed. So, the bell tolls for this unfortunate flock.
 

FORT WORTH, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--06/07/2004-Crew Saved Seriously Damaged Aircraft Following Catastrophic Engine Failure, Other Damage on Takeoff The Allied Pilots Association (APA) heralded the performance of Captain Catherine Mertz and First Officer Scott Palmer when their Fokker 100 experienced a catastrophic engine failure and other damage on takeoff on September 4, 2003.

Captain Mertz and First Officer Palmer were awarded the prestigious 2003 Daedalian Lieutenant General Harold L. George Civilian Airmanship Award by the Order of Daedalians for "the most outstanding ability, judgment and/or heroism above and beyond normal operational requirements." The Order of Daedalians, the nation's premier fraternal organization of military pilots, presented the award at its annual awards dinner on Saturday, June 5 in Riverside, California.

"We are very proud of and grateful to Captain Mertz and First Officer Palmer," said Captain John E. Darrah, APA President. "They exhibited superior airmanship under extremely challenging circumstances, and are a credit to their profession."

A flock of large birds collided with the Chicago-bound jet as it was taking off from New York's LaGuardia Airport. The right engine immediately experienced an uncontained failure, and the bird strike also seriously damaged the fuselage, radome, and right wing, causing heavy vibration. Unsure of the extent of the damage to the landing gear doors, the pilots initially delayed retracting the gear. Upon discovering that the aircraft would neither climb nor accelerate, Captain Mertz and First Officer Palmer retracted the flaps and gear. Since the vibration increased with speed, the crew elected to keep the aircraft's speed below 180 knots. Thirteen minutes later, they landed safely at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport.

Four other American Airlines pilots have received the Daedalian Lieutenant General Harold L. George Civilian Airmanship Award since its inception in 1956: Captain Daniel L. Boone, 1959; Captain Harold L. Hardy, 1975; Captain Steven E. Fulmer, 1997; and Captain Hans Mantel, 2001.

CONTACT:Allied Pilots Association, Fort Worth F/O Steve Blankenship, 817-302-2350 773-580-0604 (mobile) or Gregg Overman, 817-302-2250 817-312-3901 (mobile)

06/07/2004 10:38 EASTERN