When Pilots Qualify for Sainthood
by A. Ranganathan, Sify - Chennai,Tamil Nadu,India
October 30, 2007
The saintly soul, Mother Theresa, is yet to be ordained as a saint. Her
followers have to establish that she saved lives by performing miracles.
Pilots, on the other hand, do not have to undergo this ordeal. Thanks to the
media, both electronic and print, they seem to have already fulfilled the
main requirement for sainthood!
Everyday, a couple of air-misses takes place over the skies of Mumbai or
Delhi. And every other day, an aircraft has a bird strike. Sometimes, a
well-known politician, famous cricketer or popular Bollywood personality is
on board. And, lo and behold, a miracle takes place. They have a miraculous
escape, scream the headlines. Every time a bird-strike or an air-miss takes
place, at least 300 lives are involved. Unfortunately, saving these lives
does not count as a miracle deed!
Bird control standards
The new International Civil Aviation Organisation Standards and Recommended
Practices (SARPS) on airport bird/wildlife control became effective from
November 2003. This standard seeks to identify those areas where universally
applicable practices can be identified, and suggests levels of airfield
habitat management, bird control equipment, manpower, etc. that an airport
should put in place if it is to effectively manage the bird-strike risk to
aircraft.
It is envisaged that these standards will inform airport managers, national
regulators, the insurance industry, lawyers, etc., about what they should
expect to see invested in bird/wildlife control at an airport. Airports with
unusually high bird/wildlife strike risk are expected to, in the opinion of
International Bird Strike Committee (IBSC), implement certain procedures and
standards, irrespective of the movement frequency or type of aircraft
involved.
Airports should conduct an inventory of bird attracting sites within the
ICAO-defined 13-km bird circle, paying particular attention to sites close
to the airfield and the approach and departure corridors. A basic risk
assessment should be carried out to determine whether the movement patterns
of birds/wildlife attracted to these sites means that they cause, or may
cause, a risk to air traffic.
If this is the case, options for bird management at the site(s) concerned
should be developed and a more detailed risk assessment performed to
determine if it is possible and/or cost-effective to implement management
processes at the site(s) concerned. This process should be repeated annually
to identify new sites or changes in the risk levels at existing sites.
Where national laws permit, airports or airport authorities should seek to
have an input into planning decisions and land use practices within the
13-km bird circle for any development that may attract significant numbers
of hazardous birds/wildlife.
Such developments should be subjected to a similar risk assessment process
as described above and changes sought, or the proposal opposed, if a
significant increase in bird-strike risk is likely to result.
Political will
ICAO or IBSC may have standards and recommendations. But do we have the
political will to implement the 13-km radius sterile area. Can we get rid of
all the open garbage dumps or slaughter-houses? In these days of vote-bank
politics, the Airport Authority of India has yet to clear the Dharavi slums
in Mumbai. There is much talk of security risks and harassment of passengers
boarding a flight. All it takes is a bird-strike conducive situation at one
of these locations to bring down an aircraft.
One of the requirements for bird-control is to maintain the runway and
taxiway surrounding areas clear of tall grass or vegetation. The maintenance
is found wanting on most occasions. Every year, during the monsoon and
post-monsoon season, birds flock to the airport area due to the abundance of
grass. This, in turn, brings its share of several insects and reptiles,
which form the main feed for the birds. In one of the major international
airports, a birds nest was located right next to the runway. It took several
compelling notes to get rid of the nest.
Most bird-strikes take place during the take-off and initial climb phase of
the flight. This is the stage when the aircraft accelerates rapidly. The
bird recognises an approaching aircraft and bases its escape manoeuvre based
on its judgement of the aircraft path. Unfortunately, the bird cannot
calculate the acceleration rate of the aircraft. This, often results in a
bird strike.
Matter of judgment
The second reason is abrupt movement. The bird may even judge the path right
and carry out its escape manoeuvre. But if the pilot decides to make his own
manoeuvre at a very low level, the bird is caught napping. The third reason
is the large engine air intake of modern jets. All these fan jets have a
very large field of suction. The bird may not be able to judge this and gets
sucked into the engine.
Experience is the only way a pilot can learn how to avoid a bird strike. A
clear understanding of bird behaviour is required. Birds, when close to the
ground, most often climb to get out of the path of an intruder.
Unfortunately, most pilots tend to try and climb over the bird and this
results in the birds getting sucked into the engines. It takes a lot of
initiative to keep the profile a little lower to duck under the bird, when
height permits. The natural airflow over the wings will blow the bird away,
keeping it away from the engines mounted under the wings.
The near misses
Air-misses take place mainly because the overcrowded skies force aircraft to
be in close proximity. If all the radar controllers are qualified and all
the pilots followed instructions strictly, the chance of a near-miss is
remote.
All modern aircraft are fitted with TCAS (Traffic Collision Avoidance
System). These are on-board computers connected to Mode-S transponders. When
two aircraft are closing in on each other, the transponders talk to each
other and calculate the closure rate. A Traffic Advisory is given out, both
aurally and visually. The pilots are expected to look out and identify the
conflicting traffic and make the necessary avoidance manoeuvre.
If the advisory is ignored or a wrong path is taken by either of the two
aircrafts, the TCAS gives out what is called a Resolution Advisory. This
comes out as a RED visual warning accompanied by an aural warning, giving
out a clear instruction for a manoeuvre in the vertical plane.
The computer instructs the pilot to Climb or Descend, and a visual
indication is positioned on the primary flight display. All that a pilot has
to do is to follow these instructions implicitly.
At times, a pilot thinks he knows better, like what happened between a Jet
Airways and an Indian Airlines flight a few years back, and they have a
miraculous escape! When a pilot ignores the TCAS instructions and follows an
ATC instruction, like what happened to the aircraft over the Swiss control,
a mid-air collision is the result. Traffic avoidance, go-around manoeuvres,
engine failure, etc., are normal manoeuvres that highly trained pilots are
expected to carry out.
A professional pilot is also trained to bring an aircraft down safely, even
when an engine is severely damaged or it separates from the aircraft and
falls off the wings. All modern passenger aircraft are built and certified
to fly with several system failures.
If this trend of calling all these normal exercises a miracle continues,
very soon the prefix of a pilot may change from Captain to Saint!
Airlines Sound Alarm Bells on Airport Bird
Strikes
by Jean Christou, Cyprus Mail, Nicosia, Cyprus
October 2007
A TOTAL of 28 bird strikes on aircraft at the islands two airports were
recorded between April and August this year, with some observers afraid it's
only a matter of time before there is a serious incident.
The issue of bird strikes was highlighted earlier in the week when
Eurocypria said it had shelled out thousands of pounds to repair one of its
planes after a recent incident.
Pilots and others who know the extent of the problem say there is probably a
bird strike every day or every other day, but most go unreported or are
reported as technical problems. There might be up to half a dozen or more
serious incidents each year, one pilot said. Another source close to the
problem said reported incidents could number as many as 200 a year, the vast
majority of which would not be considered serious.
However, until recently, there has been scant concrete information on the
actual extent of the problem.
New airport operator Hermes is pursuing a wildlife programme and began
recording incidents at Paphos in January this year, and from April at
Larnaca.
Although the bulk of the recently-recorded strikes 18 out of the reported
28 happened out of Paphos airport, Larnaca has the additional complication
of being adjacent to the Salt Lake, a protected wild bird habitat.
One pilot, who wished to remain anonymous, said Cypriot pilots were
concerned, in particular about the flamingos that visit the Salt Lake.
We are all really worried about them, he said.
They are big and fly in large flocks near to the runway and they also fly at
night. Cypriot pilots know about them and tend to observe the area, but
foreign pilots may not be aware. If you fly into a flock of flamingos, the
damage could be very serious.
There have already been some near misses.
Birdlife Cyprus Executive Manager Martin Hellicar agreed with the pilot. A
flamingo bird strike has happened before and a plane was dented, he said.
They were lucky, and the incident was reported as engine trouble. This is
why an urgent plan is needed.
Hellicar said Birdlife had not have any dealings with the government on the
issue prior to Hermes taking over the operation of the airport, so could not
state exactly what the policy was. Its not that the government was not doing
anything. There was something going on, but there was no bird strike plan,
and this is an urgent issue, he said.
The pilot said that when a bird strike did occur, the captain of the
aircraft had to asses the situation quickly and decide whether he needed to
return to base or could carry on with the flight.
The decision is sometimes based on not much information, he said. You just
hear a bang, and the amount of sound is not necessarily proportional to the
size of the bird.
Thankfully, he said, most incidents were not serious and involved small
birds like sparrows. Along with flamingos, seagulls are also a concern as
they can also cause extensive damage. There is an incident probably every
other day, but pilots may not report it, he added. The airport authorities
cant guarantee that there will be no birds, but more measures are definitely
needed.
Cyprus Airways (CY) spokesman Kyriacos Kyriacou agreed. There are bird
strikes every year and some are dangerous, he said, adding that they also
cost a lot of money for the airlines.
He said the cost of repairs could run into tens of thousands and even
hundreds of thousands of pounds every year. However, the most important
issue for us is the safety aspect, because this is really a dangerous
phenomenon to aircraft, he said.
Kyriacou said CY had one serious incident over six months ago in Paphos. The
biggest danger is to the engines, he said. If one engine stops [due to bird
strike] its more or less okay but if the two stop
Hellicar said Larnaca, in the middle of one of the most important wetlands
on the island, was always going to have a bird strike problem to manage.
He said Hermes was attempting to put a plan in place. We are involved in the
discussions, he said.
He added that one of the ways the problem could be mitigated was through
better management of the habitat. Where the airport is, it's almost always
going to be an issue, he said. Thats why we need a plan for the safety of
passengers, and of birds, before there is a serious incident.
Green Party leader George Perdikis said he had raised the issue three years
ago when a seminar was held involving foreign experts.
This is a serious concern for public safety in all countries but in other
European countries there are complete plans to deal with the problem,
Perdikis said.
They are doing some things to scare the birds but it's not enough, he said.
What was needed, he said, was more technology. Its not necessary to create
the know-how. It's already there and ready to be used.
What Hermes are doing
A SPOKESMAN for Hermes said their plan was already in the pipeline, and they
had already issued a report and set down deadlines to move things forward.
Since the introduction of the wildlife programme, the activities have been
focused on building our knowledge base on wildlife control, the spokesman
said. As historical data about wildlife species and wildlife strikes have
been limited, special emphasis was given to observation and recording.
The plan includes:
Bird observations and patrol
Operations department staff are using department vehicles for patrols. They
have been provided with binoculars to be able to recognise birds/mammals.
Staff have been instructed to conduct bird inspections at least three times
a day throughout the airport premises including the eucalyptus forest in
Paphos.
Control equipment
Sirens, horns and halogen lights have been provided. Additionally a bird
distress call system will be provided soon. Shotguns and pyrotechnics have
been purchased and will be delivered as soon as permission is received to
use them. Bird control is mainly done with auditory deterrents such as human
voice, hand clapping, horns etc. When there is an abundance of birds on the
runways, wildlife controllers are scaring them away.
Grass cutting
At both airports, the vegetation around the runway and the taxiways has been
cut to a height of 5cm. The Technical department is responsible for keeping
the grass short at these areas.
Garbage
The presence of garbage at the airport attracts birds as it is a potential
food source. Both airports have been cleaned from any garbage left around,
including scrap metal and abandoned cars. At Paphos airport, the
international waste dump next to the runway was creating many problems as it
was attracting a big number of crows. These crows were roosting in the
eucalyptus forest at night and were flying to the garbage dump at dawn to
find food. The dump was cleaned, closed and is not used any more.
Pests
Part of the pest control programme was for the removal of insects around the
airport and especially around the runways and the buildings. Additionally,
the nests of pigeons are removed while wild cats are captured and
transferred to an animal shelter using special traps. Bird spikes have also
been installed on buildings in Paphos in order to prevent pigeons from
roosting there.
Box 2
Experts say most bird strikes happen close to the ground, and occur during
take off and landing. However, bird strikes have also been reported at high
altitudes, some as high as 6,000 to 9,000 metres. The bird, or in some
cases, small animals, are often sucked into the engine, where they can cause
serious damage. The International Civil Aviation Organisation estimates 11
per cent of bird strikes damage aircraft. The impact of a five-kilo bird at
240km per hour equals that of a half ton weight dropped from a height of
three metres. Flocks of birds are said to be especially dangerous, and can
lead to multiple strikes within a very brief period. Bird strikes have cost
nearly 200 lives of air passengers in the past 20 years.
Bird Strike Strands Aussies and Indians
by Alex Brown, Sidney Morning Herald
October 16, 2007
Cricket's most expensive properties, the Australian and Indian teams, were
involved in a nerve-rattling emergency landing in Nagpur yesterday after an
eagle flew into their plane's engine moments after take-off.
One of the pilots, who declined to be named, said the impact of the eagle
was such that several blades on the right-hand engine were bent, forcing him
to turn the plane around and return to the Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar
International Airport. No one was injured during the incident.
"He was quite a big boy, judging by what we just saw of him," the pilot said
of the eagle. "We noticed it straight away, and the vibrations were quite
bad. It can be dangerous, so we turned around and came back. There are a lot
of birds around the airports in Nagpur and Ahmedabad this thing does not
happen all the time, but is not uncommon either."
The incident occurred shortly after 9am local time on the teams' scheduled
Jet Airways flight from Nagpur to Mumbai. A noise emanated from the
right-hand engine shortly after take-off, and the aeroplane flew at low
altitude before turning around after several minutes.
"When anything like that happens in the air, there is a bit of panic," said
Lalchand Rajput, India's interim coach. "There was some concern and a few of
the players were shaken up, but the captain did a fantastic job. He
announced that we were turning back to Nagpur immediately and landed with no
problem, and that settled everybody down again."
Fire engines and ambulances lined the runway at Nagpur, but the pilots
landed the aircraft without incident. The players and their support staff
were then escorted to a nearby hotel, where they were forced to wait several
hours for a replacement plane to arrive from Mumbai. Of the Australians,
spinner Brad Hogg and physiotherapist Alex Kountouris were most rattled by
the emergency landing.
"We felt pretty safe as we were flying with the Indian side and they are
living gods over here," Australian paceman Nathan Bracken told AAP.
"And the pilot is probably going to be a legend for landing the plane and
saving the Indian team. But it shows you how quickly something can go from a
standard flight to extreme circumstances."
News of the emergency landing spread quickly in India, with television news
networks leading with the story throughout the day. Several networks even
provided computer graphics of the eagle flying into the propeller, and the
threat it posed to the safety of the nation's beloved cricket team.
The incident followed another heated one-day international, which Australia
won by 18 runs to clinch a series victory. The team will play a dead rubber
day-nighter in Mumbai on Wednesday, then a Twenty20 international on
Saturday before returning home for the Australian summer.
Starting from Boxing Day, Australia will face the Indians in a four-Test
series. And according to India's skipper, Mahendra Dhoni, Ricky Ponting's
men have already begun the mind games.
"They have won a series and think that they can say whatever they can,"
Dhoni said. "But we still have to play under the same sun, even in
Australia. I don't believe in engaging in verbal duels."
Dhoni's firebrand paceman, Shantha Sreesanth, warned the Australians not to
get carried away with their one-day performances in India.
"You should concentrate on your team rather than the other team," Sreesanth
said. "It's cricket. You never know. We have four matches there and we might
even win 4-0. You cannot predict anything."
Meanwhile, Cricket Australia has defended the manner in which it has handled
the racism controversy surrounding Andrew Symonds. The Australian
all-rounder, of Caribbean descent, was subjected to monkey chants during the
recent one-day international in Vadodara, but CA has as yet declined to make
a formal complaint.
Instead, CA has referred the matter to the International Cricket Council,
which in turn has written to the Board of Control for Cricket in India for
comment. But given that the BCCI has denied the incident took place -
despite confirmation from Symonds himself - it appears likely any probe into
the behaviour of the Vadodara crowd will be either token or non-existent.
The BCCI recently admitted it had not appointed an anti-racism officer,
despite the ICC's making the post mandatory for international boards from
last year.
Feather Duster
by James Halpin, jhalpin@adn.com
October 15, 2007
As Bob Tierney patrols the Anchorage landfill, he's scanning the mountains
of dirt and refuse for intruders. Forget the trespass notice. When he sees
an interloper, Tierney opens fire.
He takes his job seriously, and to get it done he uses a $10,000,
custom-built, .20-caliber rifle that he says is dead-on for at least 600
yards.
Those beady-eyed ravens and seagulls don't stick around long.
"This is kind of my own private rifle range," says Tierney, who mostly
shoots to scare, not kill.
Tierney, 77, works for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Wildlife
Services program, which is contracted out by the landfill to rid the area of
pests, like birds.
Uncontrolled, the birds -- especially the ravens, which peck and pick at
whatever they can get into -- might puncture the landfill's thick,
high-density polyethylene liner, allowing disease and contamination to
filter into groundwater, disposal foreman Rick Nissen said.
Big flocks of birds also pose a threat to aircraft operating from a field at
nearby Fort Richardson. When the landfill was built in the 1980s, city
officials agreed to keep their numbers down.
Similar control programs are in place in other parts of the country and
around the state, said Corey Rossi, the USDA's assistant state director in
Alaska.
The busy season at the landfill is picking up; the dump draws opportunistic
birds in the winter when food gets scarcer.
So Tierney patrols the dump full time each week, watching for unwanted
guests.
EVICT, DON'T KILL
A flutter of movement catches his eye: His vehicle stops. He gets out and
lobs an explosive charge into the air. It lingers momentarily, then
erratically descends before it cracks into nothing in the cool, fall air,
leaving behind only an echo reverberating off the Chugach range.
Scavenging ravens and gulls take sudden flight across the vast landfill pit.
But they'll be back. They always are.
"They get used to the 'bird bangers,' but they can't get used to the sonic
crack of my rifle," Tierney says.
The 15-mm bird bangers are similar to an M-80 firecracker but are propelled
through the air by a small handgun, like a flare.
But the bangers can reach only several dozen yards, and using them requires
Tierney to rove the dump's roughly 85 actively used acres extensively. There
are up to eight other people combatting the birds, depending on the season,
and most of them use a shotgun for their longer-range work.
Tierney wouldn't lower himself to such a brute weapon. He prefers to
deliberately, methodically scope out the birds and surgically force them
out.
"I can raise those birds out of there by shooting a favored rock out there,"
he says. "It takes nice tools to hit a rock 400 yards out there."
THE SNIPER SOLUTION
Landfill officials didn't decide to hire a sniper right away. When the
landfill was built, nets and wires were installed above it to keep the birds
out. That worked great for the seagulls, Nissen said, but the ravens and
other birds were able to get through.
The netting needed repeated expensive repairs, and the ever-rising mounds of
rubbish were getting almost too high to fit inside the wiring, he said.
The USDA program is far cheaper and more effective, Nissen said.
So the netting came down and the guards came in. At first, up to 1,000 of
the scavengers descended daily on the stinking mounds of refuse, Tierney
said.
Now, some days it's difficult to find more than a dozen birds.
Most times the guards aren't shooting to kill, Rossi said. They just try to
scare off the birds. But between 15 and 20 are killed each year.
"We take a few birds to reinforce the deterrent technique, but we rarely
do," Rossi says.
So Tierney mostly aims for small, white rocks across the open pit that are a
few feet away from the birds. The round's impact is more than enough to get
their attention, he said.
"It's like a bomb going off in the middle of them."
Though his entire job is focused on making birds' lives uncomfortable, at
least during their stay at the landfill, Tierney said he's not interested in
killing anything.
He even likes the ravens. They sometimes blow around, spinning on cables in
the wind, "having a ball." Tierney said he once almost got one trained to
land on his hand by feeding it French fries.
"You need to train them to leave," Rossi said.
Oops.
COMMANDING THE TERRITORY
Tierney, who is retired from a 47-year career with the International
Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, was hanging out and drinking coffee at a
gun shop a few years back when the "goose patrol" walked in the door.
The room went silent.
"Everyone was envious of the job they did," he said.
It didn't take long for Tierney to realize his calling. Shooting has always
been a passion for him, and here was an opportunity to get paid for it. He
inquired about a job scaring birds at the Anchorage airport and got hired.
"I wasn't looking for a job, but I don't want to sit at home watching TV,"
he said. "It's a cool job for an old man."
He needed to get special permission to use his rifle at the dump, but he
showed Rossi that by sitting from a perch atop the mountains of garbage and
dirt he could be more efficient in his work. He didn't have to chase the
birds down.
"You've got a big, open area, and the beauty of this was that he could sit
at one high point and command the entire area," Rossi said.
Tierney said he watches the backdrop carefully, and he's not allowed to
shoot in the direction of trees on the hillside where stray bullets could
hit somebody.
But long-range command of the sprawling refuse dump has become something of
a necessity. While the birds might get used to the bird bangers, they sure
don't get used to Tierney and his gun.
They know what he looks like, and when they see him coming -- or his truck
-- they head for the hills. Tierney has tried disguising himself by wearing
different hats and jackets, but to no avail.
"They're pretty brave, and they're smart," he says, scanning the vast
expanse of rubbish. "The old ones get out of Dodge right away."
This Week's Airplane Bird Strike a Rare
Affair
Geoff Nixon, Ottawa Citizen
October 9, 2007
Three geese that struck the front of an Airbus A-321 taking off from the
Ottawa Airport on Monday caused nothing more than "a brief hiccup" for those
on board, an airline representative said Tuesday.
Air Canada spokesman Peter Fitzpatrick said two geese hit the windshield of
Flight 463 around 6:30 p.m., while the third was sucked into the plane's
engine.
Mr. Fitzpatrick said that following the incident, the plane returned to the
airport as a precaution and passengers were placed on another plane.
Airport spokeswoman Krista Kealey said the strike took place about 3.2
kilometres from the airport - out of the range of wildlife control workers
patrolling the airport grounds.
According to Ms. Kealey, the airport employs three full-time bird and
wildlife patrol specialists who work to keep avian visitors from becoming
pests.
These specialists use a combination of horns, flashing lights and
pyrotechnics, Ms. Kealey said, to scare the birds from airport property.
They patrol about 470 hectares within the airport perimeter, she said.
The airport has an area of 1,700 hectares, but much of the land is used for
non-aviation purposes and is not patrolled. This non-aviation land does,
however, have restrictions on its use in order to prevent birds from
inhabiting the area.
Developments involving ponds or large amounts of garbage - landfills, for
example - are prohibited.
Ms. Kealey stressed that the airport makes every effort to prevent bird
strikes.
"We take bird and wildlife mitigation very seriously. It's a huge priority
... for the safety of the passengers as well as for the safety of the
aircraft."
The Transport Canada website says "a single animal has the potential to
cause severe damage" to aircraft, crew and passengers.
Birds can fly into the path of low-flying planes and are small enough to
pass through engines. While some aircraft have been designed to withstand
small bird strikes, they are not as able to handle multiple or large bird
strikes.
Mark Adam, president of Falcon Environmental Services, a wildlife services
company based in Alexandria that serves the aviation industry, said such
strikes can be hard to avoid this time of year.
"The fall months and the spring months are really high peak periods for
goose migration," he said.
Mr. Adam said it is estimated bird strikes cost the worldwide aviation
industry more than $1 billion each year.
Lucie Vignola, a spokeswoman for Transport Canada, said bird strikes tend to
take place while a plane is either landing or taking off. As for Monday's
strike, she said such incidents are rare.
"We've been lucky. There has never been a fatal crash with a large aircraft"
in Canada.
But tragedies can occur. In September 1995, a Boeing 707 crashed shortly
after takeoff from Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska, after a collision
with an estimated 12 Canada Geese. All 24 passengers were killed, including
two Canadian soldiers.
Following Monday's strike, Ms. Vignola said that, by law, Air Canada and the
airport are required to review their wildlife practices and report back to
Transport Canada within 30 days.
Bird Strikes Costly, Deadly to Pilots
By By Ashley Andyshak, Frederick News-Post Staff, MD
October 7, 2007
By Ashley Andyshak
Frederick News-Post Staff, MD
It's a bird. It's a plane. It's ... both.
Airplanes and birds share the skies every day. For birds, meeting a plane in
the sky can be deadly. For planes, it's damaging and costly.
The effects of bird strikes cost more than $600 million per year in damage
to civil aircraft and loss of human life, according to the Bird Strike
Committee USA, a volunteer group that works to reduce wildlife hazards at
airports.
Civilian airports reported more than 7,100 bird strikes in 2006, and the
U.S. Air Force reported more than 5,000. The Bird Strike Committee USA
estimates that only about 20 percent of bird strikes are reported.
At Frederick Municipal Airport, manager Charlie Abell is constantly on the
lookout for birds -- crows, blackbirds, sparrows and seagulls are the
airport's most abundant pests.
"Birds are always a problem," Abell said.
A bird can disrupt a plane's take-off and landing if it's struck at those
moments, Abell said. If a large bird, like a crow or a buzzard, gets caught
in a plane's engine, it can be disastrous, since most small aircraft operate
on one engine. Of the 305 aircraft based at the Frederick airport, more than
200 are single-engine planes, Abell said.
Many engines on larger commercial planes are designed to safely shut down
after a bird strike, but collisions with large birds are costly in other
ways. Strikes can cause flight delays and cancellations, which can be more
expensive than the physical damage, said Richard Dolbeer, national
coordinator of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's airport wildlife hazard
program and chairman of the Bird Strike Committee USA.
"We've had a number of close calls in recent years with commercial aircraft
that have had significant damage to an engine on takeoff," Dolbeer said.
"Pilots (have) had to come around on one engine and make an emergency
landing."
And there's still the possibility a bird strike can cause a plane to crash,
Dolbeer said.
Since 1988, bird strikes have destroyed 186 planes and have killed 202
people worldwide, he said.
The most deadly strike in recent history occurred at Boston's Logan Airport
in 1960. As a plane took off, it flew through a flock of starlings and
crashed into Boston Harbor, killing 62 people.
In 1995, an Air Force transport aircraft crashed near Anchorage, Alaska,
after flying through a flock of Canada geese. All 24 airmen aboard the plane
died.
And with the wildlife protection legislation that's been enacted over the
past 50 years, populations of many types of birds, including Canada geese,
pelicans, seagulls, and starlings, have increased. The annual number of bird
strikes has more than quadrupled since tracking began in 1990, increasing
from 1,743 in 1990 to 7,089 in 2006, Dolbeer said.
"We've done an outstanding job in Canada and the U.S. in wildlife
conservation over the last 30 to 40 years, we've put billions of dollars
into cleaning up the environment and closely regulating pesticides,
purchasing and setting aside wildlife refuges and enacting laws to protect
wildlife, and as a result we've seen a tremendous resurgence of many
species," he said.
The "poster child" for this trend is the bald eagle, Dolbeer said. In 1972,
only 800 bald eagles remained in the U.S.; now, there are about 20,000, he
said.
Some birds, like Canada geese, have adapted to urban environments and are
comfortable in places like airports, he said.
"Airports are like an oasis for wildlife," he said. "It's a block of land
with lots of grass and nothing on it but airplanes."
Having a landfill or a wildlife refuge near an airport can also attract more
birds, Dolbeer said.
Mitigation
Both Dolbeer and Abell said maintaining an airport's landscaping is
paramount to preventing bird strikes. Everything from tree placement to the
length of the airfield's grass is considered.
"Blackbirds like short grass, so we maintain higher grass, a few inches
long," he said. "The higher the grass is, the harder it is for birds to
congregate."
When that doesn't work, Abell resorts to the "Scare Away Launcher."
Similar to a cap gun, the small, plastic projector shoots firecracker-like
pellets that explode and scare birds out of the area.
Rodents can also pose a problem for planes on the taxiway, Abell said, but
the Frederick airport has a natural solution.
"It's nice to have a fox or two around to get the small rodents," he said.
Dolbeer said there is no magic formula for scaring birds off an airfield.
The type of bird, the season of the year, and how attached the bird is to
the surrounding environment affect how birds respond to scare tactics, he
said.
"The key is habitat management at airports. That is the foundation, and
that's what makes scare techniques more effective," he said.
Almost 90 percent of the birds airports try to manage are protected by the
Migratory Bird Treaty Act, Dolbeer said.
"You have to be really sensitive, and you have to have permits if you are
going to do any removal, and this makes dealing with wildlife at airports a
very challenging proposition," he said.
Research
According to a report released by the Federal Aviation Administration,
nearly 60 percent of bird strike victims are unidentifiable.
So how do airports find out what types of birds are most prevalent in their
area so they can landscape accordingly?
Enter Carla Dove and the rest of the bird identification team at the
Smithsonian Institution's Museum of National History in Washington.
The Smithsonian's Division of Birds is the busiest such lab in the world,
and one of only a few that specialize in bird identification.
All U.S. Air Force bases are required to report bird strikes to the FAA, and
these reports comprise most of the mail Dove's lab gets every day. Civil
airports are encouraged to send remains from unidentifiable strike victims,
she said, and the number that do regularly report strikes is increasing.
The Smithsonian is home to a collection of more than 620,000 bird specimens,
which serves as the toolbox for lab's analysts.
Bird remains, which can range from whole feathers to small bits of tissue,
first go to researcher Marcy Heacker's desk. Heacker tries to match the
remains with the Smithsonian's specimens, and the process can be fairly easy
if the feathers received are intact, she said.
Not all cases are that easy. If Heacker is unable to identify a sample by
looking at it, it's sent to Dove's office.
Dove puts a sample of tissue on a slide and compares it with thousands of
other slides already on file. The fluffy down at the base of the feather is
unique to every group of bird, she said, so identifying the remains is
possible even if very little of the down is available.
Sometimes even that isn't enough. When that's the case, the sample goes to
Nancy Rotzel, the lab's DNA analyst.
Rotzel sequences the sample's genes and identifies the tissue using the
Barcode of Life database, which is managed by the Biodiversity Institute of
Ontario.
Dove said the office gets about a dozen mailings a day; during migration
season, when more bird strikes occur, she sometimes gets 60 per day.
Once the birds are identified, the information is used to determine which
birds are plentiful in certain areas and help airports manage their
landscaping to deter these species.
Computer programs, including the Bird Avoidance Model and the Avian Hazard
Advisory System use this data to assess bird strike risk based on recorded
bird population and weather conditions in a given area.
Even with the technology available today, the risk of a bird strike will
never go away, Dolbeer said.
"We'll never completely solve this problem; there are always going to be
birds around," he said.
Trainer Crash Caused by Bird Strike
Zachary M. Peterson - Staff Writer, Navy Times
October 5, 2007
A bird strike was the culprit behind the crash of a
training jet in Texas on
Monday, the second mishap involving a T-45 Goshawk in five days, according
to a Navy source.
As a result of the second crash, officials with Training
Air Wing 2 based at
Naval Air Station Kingsville, Texas, temporarily shut down operations
Tuesday.
The jet, which was carrying a student pilot and a flight
instructor, crashed
about two miles north of the base. The two ejected safely and were treated
for minor injuries, a Navy official said.
In the earlier crash, a student pilot ejected before his
Goshawk hit the
ground on the King Ranch, located near Kingsville. The student was treated
and released from the hospital, the Associated Press reported.
The cause of the accident is under investigation, according
to Lt. Sean
Robertson, a spokesman for Navy Region South.
The two-seater T-45 is used for intermediate and advanced
training for Navy
and Marine Corps jet carrier aviation and tactical strike missions. There
are two models of the aircraft, the T-45A and the T-45C.
The A model became operational in 1991 and contains an
analog design
cockpit, while the newer T-45C, which began delivery in 1997, has a new
digital glass cockpit design, according to the Navy.
The two jets that crashed were A models, Robertson said.
Since 1992, 15 T-45A aircraft have crashed, according to
April Phillips, a
spokeswoman for the Naval Safety Center in Norfolk, Va.
Valley Startup One of the First Companies to
Monitor Wildlife Around Airports
Andrew Johnson,
The Arizona Republic
Sept 8, 2007
Normally, a bird strike on a jetliner is a traumatic but not catastrophic
Every year, airports across the country report thousands of incidents
involving aircraft hitting wildlife.
The "airstrikes," as they are known, cause millions of dollars in damage to
planes and at times result in injury, sometimes even death, for pilots and
passengers.
A Valley startup firm is taking steps to minimize such incidents at Phoenix
Sky Harbor International Airport by monitoring the wildlife population on
and around its property.
"It's a nationwide sort of problem," said Steven Fairaizl, senior biologist
and co-founder of Airport Wildlife Consultants LLC. The business, which
Fairaizl started with his wife, Gale, in 2006, recently won a one-year
renewable contract with Sky Harbor to handle all wildlife-mitigation
services for the airport.
The need to handle such services is not new. For at least the past five
years, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has handled wildlife monitoring
for Sky Harbor.
The agency handles the services at the majority of U.S. airports, but now
more private businesses like Airport Wildlife Consultants are getting into
the game thanks to recent recommendations from the Federal Aviation
Administration.
Fairaizl, a former wildlife biologist with the USDA, keeps a desk at Sky
Harbor's Airport Operations Center just east of Terminal 2, but he spends
the majority of his day patrolling land around the airport.
The main thing he watches for is the arrival of new birds, which have the
potential to cause minor damage or major malfunctions for aircraft.
The number of reported incidents involving airplanes and wildlife has risen
steadily since the 1970s. Biologists attribute the rise to increased air
travel and the ban against the pesticide DDT that went into effect in 1972.
That resulted in a larger bird population.
From 1990 to 2006, the number of strikes that airports reported to the FAA
increased 306.7 percent, to 7,089. Altogether during the 17-year period,
airports reported 73,526 incidents, causing $257.6 million in losses,
according to a report by the FAA and USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection
Service.
The number of incidents could actually be higher, according to biologist
Richard Dolbeer, because reporting of them is voluntary.
"We've got crowded airspace," said Dolbeer, national coordinator of the
USDA's Airport Wildlife Hazard Program. "We've got a lot more planes in the
air and a lot more birds in the air than we had . . . 30 years ago."
While the USDA handles wildlife assessments for numerous airports around the
country, it is not uncommon for airports to work with outside companies or
hire their own biologists to do the work, Dolbeer said.
When Fairaizl notices a rise in bird or other wildlife populations, he uses
harassment tactics such as firecrackers to encourage the animals to leave.
He typically starts his day at sunrise, getting in a Sky Harbor vehicle and
driving about a 2-mile radius around the airport.
Once a week, he does bird counts at a select area to ensure there are no
significant changes.
Factors including weather and fish die-offs can cause population spikes,
Fairaizl said, and summer months are typically the slowest.
Renewable contract
Airport Wildlife Consultants' contract with Sky Harbor went into effect in
July and expires in June. It includes four renewal option years.
Under the contract, the company bills the airport $41.75 per hour with an
annual cap of about $87,000, according to Rob Forester, deputy director of
operations for Sky Harbor.
Forester said the airport decided to open the contract to outside bidding
after the FAA issued an advisory in June 2006 outlining the qualifications
that wildlife biologists need for conducting assessments at airports.
"We were happy with the services that the USDA was providing here, but based
on the . . . new guidance in the advisory circular, we decided to bid it
out," he said.
Prior to that, Sky Harbor had an intergovernmental agreement with the USDA
to handle wildlife assessments.
The USDA did not submit a bid for Sky Harbor's contract. In fact, Airport
Wildlife Consultants was the only firm to do so, according to Forester.
During fiscal 2006, the USDA provided some type of assistance related to
wildlife management to 674 airports, Dolbeer said.
Pursuing more business
Currently, Airport Wildlife Consultants' contract with Sky Harbor accounts
for the majority of the company's revenue.
Fairaizl, a Cave Creek resident, said the company also has smaller contracts
with other public sector clients, including the Arizona Game and Fish
Department to monitor water developments, bringing its annual revenue to
about $120,000.
Moving forward, Fairaizl said he and his wife plan to pursue contracts with
other airports but is worried the USDA's established relationship with many
of them will make it difficult to achieve.
The company has also approached Tempe about submitting a bid to handle
wildlife mitigation for Tempe Town Lake.
The city also has an intergovernmental agreement with the USDA to monitor
that area, said Nancy Ryan, Rio Salado manager for Tempe.
"We've had an established relationship with the USDA, and we're happy to
continue that relationship," she said.
Reach the reporter at andrew.johnson@arizonarepublic.com or (602) 444-8280.
Read his entrepreneurs blog at innovation.azcentral.com.
