Audit: FAA ineffective in program to keep animals from hitting planes

[alp227]

Source: CNN

The FAA has not effectively implemented a program designed to keep birds and other animals from causing damage to airplanes, according to an audit from the Department of Transportation.

The agency did not have robust inspection practices, inspectors did not have expertise in wildlife hazards, and they failed to keep adequate records of inspections, Jeffrey Guzzetti, the assistant inspector general for aviation and special program audits, wrote.

Aircraft strike thousands of animals each year. In 2011, there were 9,840 strikes -- nearly 27 a day -- recorded by the FAA, according to the report. The number is five times the number of strikes that were reported in 1990, due in part to increasing bird populations.

The results of a collision with wildlife often are minor but they can cause serious problems, including engine failures like those that forced US Airways Flight 1549, the so-called "Miracle on the Hudson," to crash land in the river.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/23/travel/faa-wildlife-hazards/index.html

[unblock]

1. well really the idea is to keep planes from hitting animals.

[mike dub]

2. This story reminds me of this video of a 757 engine ingesting a large bird...

...just as the plane leaves the runway during takeoff.

A lil O/T, as this happened in the UK, and wasn't a *dual engine failure as-in Sully's Miracle on the Hudson... but nice example of flight crew handling single engine failure with aplumb.

[Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel]

3. Thanks for the video...

Wow! Talk about team work!

[pnwmom]

4. Besides birds, what are these other animals planes are hitting?

Bats, I guess. Anything else?

[OnlinePoker]

5. 97% are birds

From a Christian Science Monitor article from 2009:

...Rabbits, dogs, muskrats, moose (!!!), skunks and white tailed deer – any animal is fair game (pardon the pun). You might feel most sorry for the turtle. When that plane gets moving, he's not going anywhere – ask the Slowskys.

The New York Times calculated that 97 percent of the reports involved birds. But get this: the victims also include alligators.

At least 14 alligators were struck by airplanes between 1994 and 2005. No word how the reptiles fared in those contests.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/The-Vote/2009/0424/faa-database-shows-its-not-just-birds-14-alligators-hit-by-airplanes-too

[oldsarge54]

6. Ineffective?

In what sense ineffective? Didn't come up with a working plan? Didn't implement a plan made? Two of the fatal aircraft crashes I've responded to were due to bird strikes, an F-111 and a T-33. It is really a problem that does kill people. In Europe, we kept falconers on base. BTW, rabbits and hares can cause problems too, part of that non-bird 3%.

[snooper2]

7. so bird population has gone up even though we fly more and more---

That should kill that meme-