Three recent bird strike incidents for aircraft including Qantas and Thomas Cook

Date added: 18 November, 2010

SYDNEY — A Qantas Boeing 747 had to turn back to Johannesburg after one of its
engines suffered a bird strike, the airline said Wednesday, the latest in a string
of incidents to beset the Australian carrier.

Qantas said the plane’s number two engine lost power after sucking in a bird
shortly after takeoff late Tuesday, with damaged turbines forcing an unplanned
landing. There were 171 passengers on board.

“The aircraft is being worked on by engineers,” a Qantas spokesman told AFP.

“It’s just a bit of damage to some of the turbine blades, it’s not a huge thing.”

One of Qantas’ smaller Boeing 717s was hit by lightning on a regional flight
between the Australian destinations of Alice Springs and Darwin hours earlier,
causing “minor damage” to the exterior.

The incidents follow the return to Sydney of a Qantas Boeing 747 bound for Buenos
Aires on Monday after it suffered an electrical fault which caused smoke to pour
into the cockpit.

Qantas has been plagued with mechanical issues since grounding its fleet of Airbus
A380s after an engine exploded on one of the superjumbos on November 4, forcing
an emergency landing in Singapore.

A Boeing 747 had to turn back to Singapore with a sparking engine the following
day, and a Melbourne-bound Boeing 767 returned to the west coast city of Perth
with engine vibration a week later.

Qantas said Wednesday it hoped to have the A380 back in service “as soon as possible”
but declined to give a timeframe for it.

“We are working with Rolls-Royce to identify which engines need replacement components,
or to be replaced altogether, as part of our inspection process,” the spokesman
said, referring to the engine manufacturer.

Qantas experienced bird strikes two or three times a year and it was a “pretty
rare occurrence”, he added.

Thomas Cook holiday jet survived bird strike

Birds passed through the jet’s engine 

A British holiday jet flying back to Manchester survived flying into a flock
of seagulls on take-off, an accident report has revealed.

The “significant bird strike” led to birds passing through both Rolls-Royce engines
of the Boeing 757 said the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB).

The Thomas Cook Airlines flight landed safely in Manchester after flying from
Dalaman in Turkey on 19 June.

The extent of the damage was discovered on landing.

“Significant bird remains were found still adhering to the nose and main landing
gear assemblies,” the AAIB report said.

Damage included a cracked nose, landing gear light and dents in the engine intake
cowlings.

The report said that at take-off from Dalaman, the flight crew “heard several
impacts and were aware that a significant bird strike had occurred”.

The crew told air traffic control and had later heard that “multiple bird remains
had been found on the runway at Dalaman”.

Posted: Thursday, November 18th, 2010. Filed in Biodiversity News.