Originally Posted by
FullWings
I heard from an engineer (where’s TDR when you need him?) that you are less likely to get bits of birds going down the engine core at high thrust settings, e.g. takeoff, as the remains get flung outwards through the bypass duct. I have had birdstrikes at night and only found out about them when the sun came up and you could see the mess.
Long story short, modern engines are tested with bird carcasses for certification but with the Korean accident it looks like they flew through a large flock which damaged the airframe as well as the engines, which is bad luck. As others have said, you do get warnings but they are often 24/7/365 “bird activity near the airport” which there is not a lot you can do about. Birdstrikes are fairly common, damage, especially severe damage, quite rare.
You called
Like most of aviation, engine bird ingestion testing is based on probabilities. The aim is make a catastrophic outcome "extremely unlikely" in FAA parlance (basically a 10-9 event). There is no 100% protection.
Power setting with a bird strike is a bit of a crap shoot - higher power is more apt to 'centrifuge' the bit bits out of the core, so less likely to result in core damage, but the stresses on the fan blades are higher so the odds of fan blade damage are higher. Low power hits on easier on the blades, but more likely to result in stuff going into the core. FWIW, all the bird strike engine testing is done at max takeoff power settings.
Bird strike related crashes are very, very rare, but occasionally the odds catch up with you. Bird strike is one area where 4 engines are statistically safer (harder to take a big flock of big birds into 4 engines than just 2) - but sometimes even that is not enough (30 years ago, there was a military 707 AWACs aircraft that crashed in Alaska after a major birdstrike on takeoff). Not much different day vs. night, since the usefulness of 'see and avoid' is pretty poor.