Birds and planes: A dangerous pair
As fond as I am of birds, I would really rather not do my
birding at the airport.
When a Bay Area pilot miraculously crash landed his jet into the
Hudson River in New York City with no loss of life on Jan. 15, the
cause was thought to be a couple of Canada Geese that got sucked
into the engines. Bad news for the birds, certainly, but the news
could have been just as bad for the 155 passengers and crew who
walked away from that plane.
Birds and planes: A dangerous pair
As fond as I am of birds, I would really rather not do my birding at the airport.
When a Bay Area pilot miraculously crash landed his jet into the Hudson River in New York City with no loss of life on Jan. 15, the cause was thought to be a couple of Canada Geese that got sucked into the engines. Bad news for the birds, certainly, but the news could have been just as bad for the 155 passengers and crew who walked away from that plane.
Then, just this Monday, a jet rolling down the runway at 138 mph at Mineta International Airport in San Jose pulled a gull into one engine, shut it down and taxied back to the terminal. Again, no loss of life – except for the gull’s and the few minutes shaved off quite a few lifespans, thanks to a moment or two of terror.
Getting birds away from airports is harder to do than say. Most of them offer open space, and grassy areas surrounding runways. Most golfers know all-too-well that clipped grass is candy to wayward geese. Thanks to verdant lawns surrounding industrial parks, golf courses, airports and public parks, many once-migratory Canada Geese are just settling in for the long haul and tossing out the whole bother of migration.
Some golf courses employ trainers and their dogs – border collies appear to be a favorite – to patrol courses and emphatically order the geese to move along.
But guano-spattered greens and disabled commercial aircraft are issues of entirely different orders of magnitude. The gull that met its end in San Jose on Monday was probably one of those parked at the airport, enjoying an easy snack of earthworms pushed out of the soil by heavy rains.
Use a search engine and type in “bird control” and the results are astounding. When Google returns 21.5 million hits to that query, it’s a sure sign that getting rid of birds you don’t want around is a difficult, and perhaps lucrative, process.
During a visit to Moss Landing a few months ago, we periodically heard an ear-tearing screeching noise emanating from one of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute buildings. It was the building heavily populated by a variety of gulls, and heavily mantled in what gulls leave behind.
The call was a recording of a gull’s distress call, and it quite obviously was more effective in repelling passersby than birds.
But experts tend to look to sound deterrents, and devices specifically intended to drive off large birds are working at airports in San Francisco, Los Angeles and many other cities.
San Jose airport spokesman David Vossbrink said the airport has an anti-bird program that includes keeping grass around runways closely mowed to discourage nesting, using noisemakers and using air traffic controllers to monitor the situation.
Monday’s incident is the first time a plane at the airport has shut down as the result of a bird strike, Vossbrink said.
Well that’s some comfort, I guess. Still, I’ll keep hope that somebody comes up with a better idea.
