Birds on runways pose growing threat to planes, themselves

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SEATTLE (Reuters) -- Airports use loud booming noises, scarecrows, shotgun blasts and even euthanasia to keep unwanted feathered guests off their runways.

But, no matter what they do, the birds keep coming back, posing a growing risk to the U.S. commercial jet fleet and prompting ever-tougher standards and wildlife control measures to cut down on potentially disastrous collisions.

The latest incident took place last Sunday at Los Angeles Airport when a KLM Royal Dutch Airlines 747 carrying 449 passengers made an emergency landing after one of its four engines ingested a large bird just after takeoff. Parts of one of the jet's engines crashed down on a beach as the plane also jettisoned fuel in order to make a safe emergency landing.

Fatal collisions are rare but not unheard of. Industry experts say some 90 people have died from bird strikes since 1990, including 24 airmen on a four-engine U.S. military plane that crashed in 1995 at Alaska's Elmendorf Air Force Base.

With bird-strike damage topping $350 million a year and rising, U.S. regulators, manufacturers, airports and airlines have labored to keep birds away from airfields and build engines better equipped to chew them up and spit them out.

"It only takes one Canada goose to shut down an engine, and a flock might take out more than one. With many newer planes flying with just two engines, that creates a serious risk," Steve Osmek, a biologist at Seattle-Tacoma airport, said.

The Federal Aviation Administration plans to unveil new engine guidelines by fall boosting bird-strike capacity of the largest engines to 8 pounds (3.6 kilograms) from 4 pounds (1.8 kilograms). But that is smaller than most Canadian geese, which can grow to 20 pounds (9 kilograms), and some larger birds of prey. And smaller engines face lower standards, FAA officials said.

"The criterion is no worse than a safe shutdown. They don't have to continue to operate," said Mark Bouthillier, who works on engine standards at the FAA.

U.S. plane operators reported about 5,000 bird strikes in 1999 and, since reporting is voluntary, the actual total could be five times as high, the FAA says.

Ironically, efforts to reduce aircraft noise to meet tighter environmental standards has increased collisions with birds, which often fail to notice the aircraft in time.

With conservation programs boosting bird populations -- U.S. Canadian geese have quadrupled to 2 million since 1985 -- and the commercial jet fleet growing at about 3 percent a year, collisions are inevitable, experts say.

"Any bird living at an airport sooner or later is likely to be killed," said Richard Dolbeer, a Department of Agriculture biologist and a leader of Bird Strike Committee USA, an industry group that recently held its annual meeting in Minneapolis.

In Seattle, where 3,500 of 25,000 geese were killed this year to cut health hazards of their prolific defecation, airport officials have spent $500,000 since 1990 to control birds.

That includes growing grass that grazing geese will not eat, trimming rodent populations to keep raptors away, covering wetlands with netting, euthanization, scarecrows, frightening explosions and the occasional shotgun blast.

Besides birds and planes, authorities also cited another fast-growing population fueling bird-strike concerns: lawyers.

"That's focused attention on the problem. It used to be that when planes collided with birds it was an act of God. Now increasingly airlines and individuals want to know what's being done to minimize the likelihood of a strike," Dolbeer said.

Bird-strike testing is among the most exotic, if low-tech, in the aerospace industry. Engine makers buy euthanized birds, often ducks or gulls, from game farms. After X-rays to ensure they have not eaten hard matter such as gravel or taken buckshot that might damage the engine, the birds are fired into a massive spinning turbine.

Anecdotal evidence shows larger engines, such as General Electric Co.'s GE-90 power plants that propel Boeing twin-engine 777 wide-body jets, easily handle birds bigger than 8 pounds.

"You do see collisions with 15-pound (6.8-kilogram) geese or 20-pound (9-kilogram) vultures. Depending on the set of conditions, the engines handle that very well," Bouthillier said.

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

FAA testing animal matter from KLM jet to see if bird caused emergency landing
August 29, 2000

KLM Royal Dutch Airlines
Federal Aviation Administration
Bird Strike Committee USA

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