The ultimate bird strike, or a collision between a plane and an airborne animal like a bird or a bat, was portrayed in the 2009 movie, "Sully" about the plane captain who successfully landed U.S. Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River after the aircraft hit a flock of geese and lost engine power shortly after taking off from New York's LaGuardia Airport.
While rarely causing such extreme situations, bird strikes with planes occur on average 60 times a day or approximately 21,000 times per year around the world.
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On Oct. 7, a Ryanair (RYAOF) flight from Italy's Bologna to Manchester in the United Kingdom hit what local outlet Aviation Herald describes as a "number of geese" right before landing on runway 23R at Manchester Airport (MAN).
This is what happened when a Ryanair flight hit a flock of geese
While the plane had already made a safe landing, the runway was still immediately shut down for a safety inspection and time needed to clean up the birds killed by the impact.
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"The aircraft rolled out without further incident and taxied to the apron," the report describes. "The runway needed to be closed for about 30 minutes for cleaning."
That said, the impact still caused significant disruption to the airport's flight schedule as more than a dozen flights scheduled to take off or land at the airport were instructed to wait.
Several of the flights already in the air were diverted to the nearby Liverpool John Lennon Airport (LPL) or Birmingham Airport (BHX). Airlines that had delayed flights included not just Ryanair but also British Airways, easyJet (EJTTF) , Jet2 and Lufthansa (DLAKF) 's budget offshoot Eurowings — carriers that are commonly used for short flights between the UK and European capitals.
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These are some of the other bird strikes to take place recently
The runway eventually reopened at 20:20 p.m. local time and the airport got to work on restarting flights. Some of the longest delays took 12 hours until the following morning.
Over in the U.S., a recent bird strike incident occurred at the end of April when an American Airlines (AAL) flight from Washington, DC to Florida's Key West had to be diverted to Baltimore after the plane "struck a bird taking off." The plane had to rise just high enough to make a safe landing in the nearest state.
Two months earlier in March, another American Airlines plane coming into Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (MSP) from Miami was damaged to the point of needing to be towed off the runway and taken out of commission for repairs after striking a bird upon descent.
No travelers who were aboard that plane were injured but the runway also had to be closed down for clean-up and examination. It remained closed from the time the incident occurred around 12:50 a.m. local time until the early flights taking off on the morning of the following day. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) estimates that between 11% and 15% of all bird strikes cause damage to the aircraft while less than 1% result in injury of those aboard the plane.
