Episode 37 - Sharing the skies: A short history of bird strikes and improved safety

12/04/23 • 22 min

This is episode 37 and we’re dealing with bird strikes. The most famous of these was US Airways flight 1549 from New York City's LaGuardia Airport to Charlotte. Pilot Sully Sullenberger and first officer Jeffrey Skiles ditched the Airbus A320 in the Hudson River off Midtown Manhattan after a bird strike led to both engines failing - All 155 on board were rescued. This was known as the Miracle on the Hudson — but this episode is not going to focus on that miracle. What we’re going to do is cover some of the history of bird strikes and how there’s been a consistent attempt to deal with this challenge. Bird Strikes on aircraft go back to the earliest recorded heavy than air flights, as noted by Orville Wright in his diary in 1905 after a day on board the Wright Flyer over a cornfield in Ohio — " flew 4,751 meters in 4 minutes 45 seconds, four complete circles. Twice passed over the fence into Beard's cornfield. Chased flock of birds for two rounds and killed one which fell on top of the upper surface and after a time fell off when swinging a sharp curve.” Interesting to see that the earliest aviators were chasing birds instead of trying to avoid them, not a bird strike so much as a strike on the bird. In 1911 French Pilot Eugene Gilbert was flying his open-cockpit Bleriot XI in the Paris to Madrid Air Race over the Pyrenees when he was attacked by an angry mother eagle. I’m not sure about Standard Operating Procedure, but Gilbert was armed and opened fire on the eagle with his trusty pistol, but missed.The greatest loss of life directly linked to a bird strike took place on October 4, 1960, when an Eastern Air Lines Flight 375, Lockheed L-188 Electra, flying from Boston hit a flock of starlings during take-off, damaging all four engines. The aircraft crashed into Boston harbour killing 62 out of 72 passengers. This focused authorities on the dangers of bird strikes. This crash wasn’t only about avians, but poor maintenance because a pilots seat that slid backwards was cited as part of the litany of events that caused the plane to stall.Another bird-strike incident that was critical in the development of improved standards was the United Air Lines Flight 297 crash. It was a scheduled flight from Newark International Airport to Atlanta which plunged to the ground 10 miles southwest of Baltimore on November 23, 1962, killing all 17 people on board. Most accidents occur when a bird collides with the windscreen or is sucked into the engine of jet aircraft, annual damage estimated to be $400 million within the United States alone and up to $1.2 billion to commercial aircraft worldwide.

Previous Episode

Episode 36 - The 1971 Aeroflot Antonov twin crashes and the ATR-72’s achilles boot

This is episode 36 and its icy cold out there - it’s time to check out the incidents involving icing - starting with a short list and general description of the causes, then focusing on the two Aeroflot Atonovs accidents in 1971 and a design fault in the ATR-72. There’s an unfortunately long list of commercial airliners lost due to icing, more than 540 accidents and events caused by aircraft icing by the late 1980s in the United States alone and most of these were fatal. Anti-icing and de-icing research can be traced back to the early 1930s and in 1948, two scientists, AG Preston and Calvin Blackman conducted the first successful iced flight experiment in which the drag coefficient increased by 81% when the wing was covered and the pilot reported the plane was almost beyond control. I’m not sure of what aircraft they used but the results were extraordinary. Other research by NASA on the DHC-6 Twin Otter aircraft measured various conditions and ice shapes and their effect on aircraft thrust, landing flaps, and angle of attack. It’s thought that the first recorded case of a commercial airplane accident caused by icing occurred on December 15, 1920 when a de Havilland DH.4 mail plane operated by the United States Post Office Department crashed near Belleville, Pennsylvania, in the USA due to ice accumulation on the wings and control surfaces.There was a happier end to another on 19th December 1946 where a Railway Air Service Douglas Dakota 3 stalled on take-off 1 km north-east of Northolt Airport in London. This was the case of the scheduled service to Glasgow Airport from London. Four crew and one passenger were on board .. Yes, you heard correctly, one passenger.So to matters more terminal if you excuse the extremely cheesy aviation pun. That be the highly unusual twin crashes of the Antonovs in 1971 both caused by ice accretion. ot Antonov An-12s crashed on approach to Surgut International Airport, just nine days apart. The crashes occurred under near-identical circumstances due to the aircraft type’s lack of preparedness for flying in severe icing conditions. It’s the formation of an ice ridge by water droplets beyond the ice protection system and one side anti-icing system that is likely to cause rolling and overturn according to research documents. A case in point of the ridge cause was an ATR-72 crash in 1994. At that time, the airplane was at a severe level of icing condition, and the co-effect of the electric heating de-icing system at the wing leading edge and the natural conditions formed an ice ridge on the second half of the wing, resulting in a negative pressure zone on the one side's aileron.

Next Episode

Episode 38 - Newark Airport’s “umbrella of death” and Jimmy Doolittle’s clear ways

This episode we’re going to take a look at commercial airliners that have hit obstacles near runways and how three accidents in the small town of Elizabeth New Jersey in 1951 and 1952 led to rules about clear ways and re-zoning. It’s important though to stress how the rules have changed improving safety particularly with regard to clear ways. Take one of the the earliest which was the 1933 Imperial Airways Ruysselede incident on 30 December 1933 when an Avro Ten collided with a radio mast at the town of Ruysselede, West Flanders, Belgium and crashed killing all ten people on board. The Avro Ten's registration was G-ABLU, nickname Apollo, and had entered service with Imperial Airways in May 1931. Apollo the Avro Ten departed Cologne at 12:20 local time - 20 minutes later than scheduled. A thick fog hampered the flight, and the pilots headed out on a track to the north of the normal route. They appeared to be blissfully unaware of the threat that awaited. Less than an hour later at 13h15 the aircraft was cruising at 250 feet when it hit a guy wire of the 870 foot tall Ruysselede radio mast. The force of the strike demolished the top section of the mast and the Avro Ten lost a wing and crashed. Four workers at the radio station rushed to help those on board the aircraft, joined by local villagers from Ruysselede. At least one passenger survived the crash, but in a horrible moment, before they could save him, then there was an explosion and the aircraft burnt up despite valiant attempts by the rescuers to get to those on board all perished. Thirteen of the rescuers suffered serious burns they were so committed. It’s time now to take a closer look at three accidents in a small town called Elizabeth located close to New Jersey’s Newark International Airport that were going to change aviation regulations regarding zoning and clear ways amongst other rules. The first crash took place on December 16 1951, when a Miami Airlines flight from Newark to Tampa hit a warehouse in an industrial stretch of the Elizabeth River. All 56 passengers and crew died. Witnesses described seeing the Curtiss C-46 Commando plane belching smoke after take off. The plane lost altitude, swept low over Elizabeth CBD, stalled, and crashing into the warehouse — parts of the plane skidded through the building into the river Elizabeth. This second crash led Elizabeth Mayor James T. Kirk to demand that Newark Airport be closed, a move opposed by the Port Authority because of those two terminal illnesses called stupid politics and greed. But there was a third crash that was imminent - and strike three would change everyone's minds.