The FAA wanted to keep it closed, the Obama administration pressured the FAA to release it. It has been released, close to 90,000 bird strikes have been reported by pilots since 1990. Bird strikes are reported by pilots under a voluntary basis. The FAA was afraid that if the informational was made public those pilots would be hesitant to give the information to the FAA. It defiantly makes since to me; if it’s something a pilot can report in private they will more likely report it. Now that the information is public pilots may feel less likely to report such issues if they believe their reputation may be on the line. Although, I do also understand the consumers of the commercial aviation economy should be able to receive this information as well.
Since 1990, 28 cases involving an aircraft colliding with an animal has been so severe that the aircraft was considered to destroyed. Busy John F. Kennedy International in New York, located next to a wildlife preserve, recorded the most aircraft with substantial damaged from animal impacts with 80 since 1990. The bird strike data shows that bird strikes are happening all over the country. For more data from the FAA click here.
So since the successful ditching of the US Airways jet on January 15 a lot of buzz is surrounding the issues of bird strikes. In reality, bird strikes are nothing new and items are in place and research has been taking place. Aircraft manufactures for a while have been shooting frozen chickens out of canons at aircraft and engines to see how the aircraft will or engine would hold up in a situation involving a bird strike. Airports have also been trying different things. Some airports have a dog that chases bird away from the airport. Others haves eagles or other such predator birds that are trained to fly around the airport and its vicinity to scare other birds away. A more recent one is using devices that make noise to scare the birds away, my thought on that is that a Boeing or Airbus coming into land at an airport would be thought to be making enough noise already.
It is important to remember if you take a look over the data from the FAA, that all that data is based off a voluntary reporting system.
What is your thought on this data that was released?
