Bird strike during take off

[GMS]

I have been told by a training captain at my airline that if I were to experience a birdstrike on the runway, and report it immediately to ATC, that the normal UK ATC procedure is to instruct an aircraft coming in to land behind you to go-around.
Is this the case? Thank you.

[ATCO Two]

Hi GMS,

I discussed this subject some years ago with the BAA Operations Unit at Heathrow. The consensus was that if a single bird was involved, and providing it had not been ingested into an engine causing possible debris on the runway, the runway would remain open pending recovery of the bird. Subsequent pilots would be told of the dead bird on the runway and given the option to go around, but not necessarily be instructed to. The runway would be inspected as soon as possible and scanned with binoculars from the Tower to see if any trace could be seen. Very often the bird remains fall in the undershoot or at the side of the runway. In my experience given the circumstances, very few pilots elect to go around when one bird is involved. If a flock of birds is involved then the runway is definitely closed and aircraft are sent around accordingly until the runway has been cleared of all debris. You may get other interpretations, but this is what I teach trainees. Hope this is useful.

[GMS]

Thanks for your repply ATCO Two, the way you intend to deal with such situations sounds very logical.
This issue came back to my thoughts after hiting a bird coming in to land at Athens the other night at 0230 local time ( what on earth are birds doing flying at that time of the morning ). Fortunately we were only doing about 200 kts. because it hit the 757's radome smack in the middle.