What’s good for the goose is good for the gander—but never for the turbojet. So the pilot and crew of US Airways 1549 discovered fifteen years ago, on January 15, 2009, when the Airbus A320 hit a flock of Canada geese while taking off from New York’s LaGuardia Airport and, two minutes later, had to set down on the Hudson River.
Astoundingly, all 155 passengers survived the forced landing, with only minor injuries reported, thanks to actions undertaken by Captain Chesley B. Sullenberger, First Officer Jeffrey Skiles, and a composed team of flight attendants. Their work has been thoroughly reported on and lauded since the incident, and deservedly so. Less well covered were their warnings in testimony before Congress that skilled pilots of their kind were becoming ever harder to find, thanks to a decade of deregulation and the laissez-faire war on aviation unions.
Less well covered still was the question of why Canada geese were so abundant in New York City at that time of year in the first place. A generally warming climate and an agreeable habitat, foremost among related causes, have meant that increasing numbers of those geese, which long migrated in great V-shaped formations from northerly regions to the Gulf of Mexico and beyond, have been staying put in the metropolises of the northeast. The grassy banks along Flushing Bay and the East River immediately adjacent to LaGuardia Airport have proved a particularly inviting habitat for the geese for many years now, with the result that Flight 1549 was far from the first aircraft to suffer a bird-related mishap at the airport.
In September 2004, for instance, five geese struck a Chicago-bound American Airlines flight at LaGuardia, shutting down an engine and forcing the plane to make an emergency landing at New York’s nearby John F. Kennedy Airport a few minutes later. In the three previous years seven other instances of goose collisions had been reported, as well as strikes of other species of birds.
Birds and aircraft collide nationwide some 7,600 times a year, reportedly. The exact number may well be far larger, since most incidents go unrecorded. Canada geese are particularly dangerous because of their large size; one U.S. Department of Agriculture bird-strike specialist has rated the impact of an adult bird, at a dozen pounds, colliding with a jet turbine on takeoff to be the equivalent of dropping a half-ton weight on the engine. Both Captain Sullenberger and First Officer Skiles have remarked that anyone who has logged any time in an aircraft has experienced bird strikes, but given that dozens of Canada geese may have been involved in the collision it’s small wonder that both engines of Flight 1549 failed—and a wonder indeed that no greater calamity ensued.
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