Birdstrikes - how serious a risk? (at CVT)

[Flightmapping]

Birds could bring down jet May 6 2004


By Sarah Portlock


Wildlife experts say birds at local nature reserves should be culled if passenger flights from Coventry Airport continue.

Warwickshire Wildlife Trust is worried about the number of large birds in the area and the potential for an encounter with a plane's engines.

They say the only safe option to avoid an air accident is to cull all the large birds in nearby nature reserves.

But it describes that as "a crazy option" - and it wants all flights banned until an environmental appraisal can be carried out.

The trust has highlighted a report from the Civil Aviation Authority, produced in 2002, which points out an encounter with a flock of geese could cause multiple engine failures resulting in a catastrophic air accident.

The report can be seen on a new part of the trust's website, www.warwickshire-wildlife-trust.org.uk

Trust chief executive Dr Andy Tasker said the problem was that jets and large birds do not mix and the airport is surrounded by large areas of wetlands with dozens of large birds, such as Canada geese.

He said: "The words from the CAA make shocking reading. There is a serious environmental and safety issue here which more people ought to be concerned about."

The CAA suggests a 10-mile exclusion zone around airports but Brandon Marsh, Coombe Abbey and Ryton Pools are all within a couple of miles, he added.

Dr Tasker said: "If flights continue, the only safe option will be to cull all the large birds, like geese and swans, at these nature reserves. We think this is a crazy option, so support the immediate banning of all passenger flights from Coventry until a full environmental appraisal has been undertaken."

A spokeswoman for the firm which operates the airport, TUI, said: "This is not something the trust has made us aware of. It shows the need for the new consultation process which we have just set up. It will clarify issues and give us the chance to update people on developments."

TUI had supplied more environmental information to Warwick District Council just last week, she said.

She added: "If people like the trust take part in the consultation process, it will solve these issues."

Sorry, had typed some comments, but the server lost them, so here we go again:

Article above in tonight\'s CET. I am getting increasingly suspicious of any anti-airport articles, so thought I\'d check the CAA article. Firstly, it talks of "safety management" zones, not "exclusion" zones - there is a very big difference here.

Secondly, it seems that all antis have a "one size fits all" prescription when any problem to do with the airport is mentioned - an immediate ban on all passenger flights. I sincerely hope that none of them are doctors, as I certainly wouldn\'t want to be their patient. Either birdstrikes are a serious risk, in which case ALL flights must be banned, or they are an acceptable risk which can be managed. The CAA article certainly points out to older aircraft being more susceptible.

Could anyone quantify the actual risk - are we talking thousands or millions to one?

[MAN777]

Sounds to me like the NIMBYs are rounding up every "expert" they can to curtail CVT OPs. Of course bird strikes can be dangerous, but if they were so common, why arent aircraft falling out of the skies around LHR every day, LHR has the Thames and massive wetlands / lakes to the east. Not to mention all the swans in the royal parks, or have the asylum seekers finished all those off !!

[Flightmapping]

That's what I'd suspected. Another lie debunked, even if it was not from CAECA this time.

[Standard Noise]

At Belfast City, we had a bird sanctuary, Belfast Lough with it's large population of gulls and a public park with resident swans, ducks, geese and starlings that made the 04 approach their favourite place to be at 1700-ish. Oh yeah, and those damn racing pigeons that one of the locals kept nearby. Fraid I don't remember planes falling out of the sky though!

As an ex Coventry ATCO, I don't remember that we had that bad a problem with birds, unless they all came to roost there after I left. All sounds like a bit of scare mongering to me.

[capt.sparrow]

having been through coventry a number of times can say i've never seen any birds.

Just one moose and a few dogs...........

[EGPFlyer]

So killing some birds is a crazy option whereas in their opinion, shutting an airport is not???

[seacue]

For comparison, KBOS, KJFK, KLGA, and KDCA are all waterfront airports. KDCA is 100 yards from a waterfowl reserve.

IIRC the only bird-ingestion crash at these airports was decades ago at KLGA.

[Flightmapping]

seacue - any chance you could use three letter codes? Or is that just to confuse us non-pilots. I can work out the K removal for the US, but the UK places take a while to get used to.

How about just about every airport in the Caribbean? Wouldn't they be at risk from seagulls? I can think of large lagoons around SXM & SJU to name a couple. MRS runway goes on to a lake - oh sod it, isn't this list endless? Even in the UK, there's LCY, LHR, EDI, GLA - even BHX is near wetlands at Hampton in Arden.

I did speak to the CET - the reporter Sarah Portlock is based in their Leamington office, which is much more of a nimby central than Coventry.

Interesting to note all 5 responses dismissing the so-called wildlife "expert" - sorry, he might be a wildlife expert, but he's not an aviation expert. Besides, the whole problem seems to relate to an unnatural growth in their populations anyway, so I don't think a reproductive cull (if that's the right term) would do that much harm anyway.

Letter to the editor to follow....

[twostroke]

The recorded number of bird strike incidents at coventry airport:

2000: 10
2001: 6
2002: 4

[Flightmapping]

Twostroke, how does that compare with other UK airports? What constitutes a birdstrike? Presumably its always fatal for the poor birds, but do they get reported even if their is no damage to the aircraft?

[twostroke]

FM: Data from cvt (air atlantic days), so probably inaccurate and certainly (my opinion) underreported.

[Daysleeper]

data from cvt (air atlantic days), so probably inaccurate and certainly (my opinion) underreported

I dunno bout that, I had 7 years flying from cov in a range of aircraft from Daks to Jets,
number of birds hit = 0, nil, nada, nunca, none. Not a sparrow sausage.

[FougaMagister]

Hi - I've flown outta Coventry quite a few times (indeed, I even did my IR there) and I can't recall the last time I was advised of bird hazard either by ATC or through the ATIS... Never seen any birds in the immediate vicinity of the airport.

Let's put things into perspective: once Thomsonfly has received its 4 737-500s, that will ad only 12 flights a day at EGBE; also, there has been jet noise at COV for a while, with Citations/HS-125s/Gulfstreams flying outta there fairly regularly. And some of these are actually noisier than a 737-500... :}

Cheers

[Rollingthunder]

It does seem the exec jets are the noisiest aircraft at our airport, except for the two CF18s who escorted an AC B767 in a couple of weeks ago, but that was a nice sound.

This airport is on the Pacific Flyway and we have a lot of birds in the area. Always seem to have a few owls in the hangar and once had a few sandpipers stray in. I think they thought the grey painted floor was some sort of beach. Lots of seagulls, of course, hawks, falcons, starlings(flocks numbering in hundreds), Canada Geese, pigeons and sparrows.

We employ a crew to roam the airport and scare birds away using delayed action cracker shotgun cartridges, amplified bird disress calls, chase dogs and once, a peregrine falcon with handler.

Can't remember the last bird strike here, but we've had them although no fatalities, I think.

Once was talking to a Captain who related that once during a take-off roll he spotted a seagull on the runway ahead. Bird took off but flew in the same direction the aircraft was moving, over the runway. As he got closer, bird kept looking over his shoulder at the approaching aircraft, but never altered course. Guess he thought he could out fly a B737. No engine strike but must have gotten messed up in the turbulance as the B737 passed him. Birdbrains.

[Flightmapping]

I did find this incident at http://www.airdisaster.com.

Is this the only recent case of aircraft in the UK actually downed by a birdstrike? Note there were no fatalities (obviously this one was a close shave), and presumably larger aircaft would have been less vulnerable?

The aircraft, on a mail flight from Aberdeen to Aalborg, Denmark, crashed at approximately 7:45am local time while departing Aberdeen. The Metroliner slid through a field and impacted two occupied automobiles on a road adjacent to the airport. The occupants of both vehicles, as well as the flight crew, evacuated the scene, and several minutes later, both the aircraft and the automobiles involved erupted in flames. The aircraft was destroyed. The AAIB reported on December 31, 2002 that the accident was caused by a multiple bird-strike as the aircraft climbed away from the runway.

[Ranger 1]

Birdstrikes continue to cost the Aviation industry in this country millions of pounds a year. In recent years the cost to others outside the UK has been greater, there has been numerous Fatal incidents caused by birdstrikes. check out the Caa web pagecaa.co.uk (http://.caa.co.uk?docs/33CAP680.pdf)

Interesting to note the Very low number of Birdstrikes mentioned by Twostroke earlier, we had 31 last year the vast number of which were involving birds of the non priority group (Small single birds) not Gulls,waders, Geese, starlings etc, also near misses & possible strikes with no evidence are all reported.
By the wayFouga Magister Aircraft noise does not deter birds!
don't rely on it to clear them if you are a pilot.

[Ex Oggie]

In my opinion, the risk of a birdstrike at CVT is pretty low, certainly lower than the risk of FOD. Not the tidiest of airfields, and that has always been a problem. Bits of packing bands, polythene, cardboard, nuts & bolts, large holes with no guard fencing, broken up apron, pogo sticks left by absent minded Shed crews etc etc. are all things that spring to mind. Lets hope TUI really get the place dragged into the 21st century.

As an aside, the birdstrike that happened to a 707 in South America, IIRC comes to mind. I didn't believe it until I had seen the photographs. Large vulture type birdy thing, went through the nose radome, breached the bulkhead and broke the co-pilots leg. That's what you call a birdstrike!

ExO

[Flightmapping]

FOD = Foreign Object Damage Debris

Can you confirm that for us non-techies? Of the kind left behind by the Continental DC-10 which took off from CDG just before the concorde did?

[Daysleeper]

Large vulture type birdy thing

not that I am an ornath, oranth orni..bird spotter but i think we are a bit short on vultures in warwickshire.
Now crows we have millions of...hmm where's my shotgun.

As for FOD , Cov is no more at risk than any freight field and certainly better than many continental airports. CDG springs to mind, its still a sh*t hole even since the concorde crash.

[Ex Oggie]

Flightmapping

Yes, you got it in one. Anything that can be ingested, blown, riddin' over etc. Also known to ramprats as 'overtime'.


Daysleeper

Cov is no more at risk than any freight field and certainly better than many continental airports.
I totally agree with you. Unfortunately, CVT is now playing at being a passenger airport and needs to smarten its act up. Maybe I was spoiled by the Air Force and their freshly swept dispersals! :p

[Ranger 1]

If they can't control the FOD in my opinion it is real concern they may be struggling to control the birds
Does anyone know who does the Bird Control there at CVT?

[Ex Oggie]

It used to be the fire crew if I remember correctly. The Rover could often be seen out and about on the airfield, and from my experience, the job is always done to a high standard.

ExO

[twostroke]

So, there was another birdstrike at cov yesterday, ingested into 737 engine according to thread here (http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=130887)

Perhaps fairly routine, but it certainly happens

[mad_jock]

Unfortunatly I have had the pleasure of hitting 3 ****ehawks (seagulls) Only one of them caused any real damage. All in light aircraft.

Bird strikes are part and parcel of operating near the sea with large areas of farm land nearby. But even then they are very rare due to the fact that birds are better at flying than we are. Why some people try and manouver out there way is a joke. Go in a staight line with all your lights on. They are much better at seeing and avoiding than we are.

I should imagine that the bird strike reports for Highlands and Islands Airports will show that in the grand scope of things CVT is a very low risk airport to operate into. The last time i was in COV the locals were that NIMIBY none of us refered to having anything to do with the airport in public. You almost felt a criminal when ordering a chinky with the number of posters on the wall trying to organise it getting shut.

Also I believe there was a pink issued stating that we had to report all bird strikes even if there was no damage.

MJ

[Ex Oggie]

Also I believe there was a pink issued stating that we had to report all bird strikes even if there was no damage.

Yup, you are supposed to put the remains in a plastic bag, and drop them in the mailbox to F'borough. Something to do with wide scale predictive and trend analysis, whatever the hell that is.

[Pilot Pete]

You don't think the article could have anything to do with the planning issue and a bit of a 'screw-driver in the spokes' move by Warwickshire Borough Council do you.......................?

Just a thought.

PP

[FougaMagister]

Ranger 1 - sorry, my comment on jet noise wasn't directed at the birds, it was an oblique shot at the NIMBY brigade... :E

Cheers