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Regardless of impressive safety stats, boarding any form of aircraft carries with it some kind of associated risk. And, when it comes to the thousands of jetliners taking off from airports around the world, potential ‘bird strike’ is a serious problem that can bring planes plummeting to the ground.
New York looking to end the feathery threat of bird strike. Image: mikebaird/Flickr.
However, New York City authorities are preparing to alleviate that risk for both Kennedy and LaGuardia airports by using the summer months to hunt, trap and humanely kill as many as 2,000 of the 25,000 Canadian Geese thought to be located within the city.
With January’s miraculous emergency landing in the Hudson River still fresh in the memories of U.S. aviation officials, it has been announced that dozens of city-owned properties located within five miles of the airports will be scoured and cleansed in order to protect departing aircraft.
The Reuters news agency reports that, while authorities embark on a bird cull every year, the coming hunt will be significantly more expansive and will focus on removing potentially problematic geese during their moulting season, when they are unable to fly.
Canadian Geese were blamed for the January bird strike that resulted in the amazing splash-landing of U.S. Airways flight 1549 (an Airbus), and have also been blamed for 77 other aviation incidents at New York City airports over the last 10 years.
“The [January] incident served as a catalyst to strengthen our efforts in removing geese from and discouraging them from nesting on city property near our runways,” said New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg regarding the hunt.
Bird strike is the term used to describe the process whereby birds in flight pass before an aircraft during takeoff and are unwittingly sucked into one or more of its engine pods. This, as with flight 1549, often damages the engine(s) and causes the plane to abruptly lose power.
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