Double Bird Strike?
My brother-in-law Brian shared an odd story with me while we were on vacation. He told me that on Monday, August 6, a bird smashed into his windshield. The bird was large, and the resulting impact shattered the windshield, startling the heck out of him.
The incident happened in the Dallas area.
The odd thing — Brian is not a pilot. He was not flying an airplane, but driving his truck to work when the bird hit his windshield.
He never saw it coming. In fact, at first he didn’t even know what had happened.
The driver of the vehicle behind him witnessed the impact, and stopped behind Brian when he pulled over to the side of the road. The witness asked, “Wow, did you see that?”
“No,” replied Brian. “What happened?”
“A big bird just fell out of the sky! It tumbled straight down out of the sky and hit your truck!”
As Brian and I talked about the incident, two theories came to mind. First theory – the bird died mid-flight of natural causes and tumbled back to mother earth. Second theory — the bird hit an aircraft, and its tumbling carcass caused a second bird strike.
I had never thought about what happens to a bird after it hits an aircraft in flight. I guess in some cases it can cause even more damage on the ground.
Anyone know of a large bird striking an aircraft in the Dallas area on Monday, August 6?
Thanks for reading!
Joe Escobar
Back in the sixties I was engaged in atmospheric research which involved a lot of thunder storm flying.
In these types of penetration the plus or minus 6000 feet rate of climb would frequently be pegged up or down.
One day down in Texas as we returned from the days penetrations underneath some nice cu’s I suddenly saw a big black bird, perhaps a turkey buzzard,all balled up and tumbling end over end out of the sky, missed us as it swept past the right wing. It was all over in an instant. Hardly believing what I had seen I turned to might partner in the right seat and almost simultaneously we said “Did you see that”.
There was no doubt that that bird was unconcious and probably dead. In the thunderstorm environment with vertical currents exceeding 6000ft/min persisting into the high twenties and an abundance of super cooled water I have no doubt that that poor bird was iced up and dead.
He had to impact somewhere out on the range or even through some windshield. Poor birds caught in an updraft that exceeds their dive terminal velocity are trapped.
Wow, I thought it was odd that my brother-in-law’s truck was hit by a tumbling bird. I am utterly amazed that someone has witnessed a tumbling bird inflight.
Between falling chunks of ice and dead birds tumbling to the ground, chicken little might assume that the sky is actually falling.
Joe
I believe that in Texas, they call that Tumble-Bird!
Most of the birds I’ve seen that hit planes turn into shreaded twit long before they hit the ground. If they are lucky enough to survive the shreader they turn to red mist. Don’t know about Texas though. Anything is possible in Texas.
There is a wildlife strike database that is maintained by USDA and FAA. If you go to the following site, you can search for strikes that were reported in TX in August. The database is only current through May right now, though. But wait a few months and do the search. If a pilot reported a strike in TX on that day, it should show up.
http://wildlife-mitigation.tc.faa.gov/public_html/index.html