Bird Collides With Plane, Bird Loses [Video]

A large bird lost its battle with a United Airlines plane on Tuesday, but it did do a bit of damage, The Boeing 737 was able to land safely at Denver international Airport after a bird collided with the aircraft, leaving a large hole in the nose of the plane.

According to the Denver Weather Channel there were 151 passengers on board. No one was injured in the incident.

Steve Cowell, an aviation expert and pilot, said that passengers were lucky that the bird hit the nose of the plane and not a window or one of the engines.

Cowell said:

“It didn’t affect the engines. It didn’t affect the landing gear from coming down at all… Passengers probably wouldn’t have felt anything, but the pilot certainly would have heard the smack of the bird on the nose.”

The type of bird that collided with the plane is not known but United States Department of Agriculture wildlife biologist Kendra Cross said that a sample has been sent to the Smithsonian for testing.

Cross said:

“The Smithsonian Institution has a catalogue DNA database of every bird species in the world and they’ll be able to determine what species that bird is based on that DNA analysis.”

Newsnet 5 reports that bird accidents are common in the airline industry. An estimated $600 million in damage is done to planes every years from bird crashes.

Col. Stephen Ganyard said:

“It’s always dangerous when an aircraft hits a bird. In this case, it was something that the crews have been trained to handle. The aircraft has redundant systems that can take care of the problems caused by this bird strike.”

Here’s a video report about the accident.