Those Hazardous Flying Birds – NYTimes.com

via Those Hazardous Flying Birds – NYTimes.com.

Planes hit birds all the time. That doesn’t typically mean captains have to glide crippled jets onto a river as Capt. Chesley Sullenberger III famously did in January 2009. But a number of collisions have led to crashes, with some deaths. The Federal Aviation Administration says more than 9,000 birds are struck annually, a figure that’s increasing every year, with the total probably twice as large when unreported hits are included.   Over the past 23 years, bird strikes have forced an average of one plane a day to land prematurely, according to the F.A.A…

 

…We can develop protocols for ironing out system imperfections as we go so as to better protect passengers and reduce the slaughter of wildlife both on the ground and in the air. But we shouldn’t wait for the next catastrophic event before beginning to install integrated avian radar systems.