On a Quest for Safer Skies: Managing the Growing Threat of Wildlife Hazards to Aviation

Authors

Gail Keirn
Jonathon Cepek
Bradley Blackwell, APHISFollow
Travis L. DeVaul, USDA APHISFollow

Date of this Version

Summer 2010

Comments

Published in The Wildlife Professional.

Abstract

The images remain indelible: On a chilly January day in 2009, a U.S. Airways Airbus A320 departed from New York’s LaGuardia Airport. About five miles out, flying at 2,000 feet, it collided with a flock of Canada geese (Branta canadensis), severely damaging the plane’s engines. Within minutes of the collision the pilot safely conducted an emergency landing on the Hudson River. All 155 passengers survived.