19 January 2023 , 12:43
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A horrifying video captured the moment a bird smashed into the windscreen of a passenger jet as it was landing.
In the clip the large plane is seen descending towards the runway from the perspective of one of the pilots.
Just before the Boeing 737 dips to 200 feet above the ground and crosses a motorway below, what appears to be a pigeon flies straight at the windscreen.
It collides catastrophically with the glass, bursting into a shocking splat of blood and feathers.
The pilot can be heard yelling an expletive, clearly shocked by the sudden appearance of the bird and the bloody obstruction to his vision.
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The strike could barely have come at a worse time, given how close the jet is to touching down on the runway.
Luckily the two aviation pros are able to see around the gory splatter and land the jet on the tarmac.
Bird strikes are a hazard for pilots, and are a relatively common occurrence.
There are more than 13,000 bird strikes annually in the US alone, according to a 2015 study.
Happily the danger of major accidents following strike are low, with very few deaths having resulted from birds colliding with passenger jets.
The majority of bird strikes (65%) cause little damage to the aircraft, although the collisions are generally fatal for the birds.
In October 2021 another serious bird strike was caught on film, when a large vulture smashed into an A350 as the aircraft neared the runway at Madrid–Barajas Airport.
The bird, which can weigh around 13 kilograms and have a wingspan of 2.7 metres, hit the nose of the aircraft.
The bird caused a huge splatter on the windscreenImages later circulated on social media of the carcass of the body imbedded in the front of the plane after it safely touched down.
Probably the most famous bird strike ever was recreated in the Tom Hanks film Sully, in which the impressive piloting skills of Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger are captured.
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A flock of birds flew into his Airbus320 as it was just 850m above New York, leading Sully to crash-land the plane on the Hudson River.
While birds hitting the windscreen can be distracting, it is generally more dangerous when they get sucked into the engines.
As the bird strikes a fan blade it can be displaced into another blade causing a cascading failure, with jet engines particularly vulnerable during the take-off phase when the engine is turning at a very high speed.