Bird Strike Committee Proceedings
Date of this Version
August 2001
Abstract
Bird and other wildlife collisions with aircraft are frequently expensive and sometimes tragic. Each year, the US Air Force (USAF) reports an average of 2772 aircraft/bird strikes costing over 35 million dollars annually. Since 1985, 17 USAF planes have been destroyed and 32 airmen have lost their lives. Accordingly, the USAF invests heavily in preventing bird strikes and requires all Air Force bases to create a Bird Aircraft Strike Hazard (BASH) plan. The BASH plan is tailored to each base and identifies key wildlife hazards, tasks required to mitigate hazards and personnel to oversee and implement the plan. The installation’s Flight Safety office is responsible for the plan, however, few safety officers have the wildlife expertise to collect the biological information necessary to identify and mitigate wildlife hazards. In addition, BASH plans sometimes suffer from a lack of continuity because of the high turnover rate of USAF personnel. In response to these challenges, some Air Force bases have contracted with USDAWildlife Services (WS) to provide assistance in managing wildlife hazards and developing site specific BASH plans. This paper outlines the administrative, logistic and management procedures followed to implement a comprehensive wildlife hazard abatement program developed by WS for Langley Air Force Base (LAFB) in southeastern Virginia.