Conflicting Flight Paths

The 266 passengers on the Conair flight were returning to Denmark after a holiday on the Spanish island of Ibiza. Their twin-​engined Airbus had just left the runway when there was an explosion in the left engine. The crippled airplane, with only one engine functioning, struggled to gain height. Thanks to the skill of the pilot, after a nerve-​racking flight of 24 minutes, the plane made a successful emergency landing.

A tragedy had been prevented. Nevertheless, air-​safety officials were anxious to know what had caused the engine to explode at such a critical moment of the takeoff. The probable cause of the explosion? A sea gull.

Years ago the birds had the heavens to themselves. However, in the latter part of this century, their airspace has become more and more crowded because of the volume of air traffic. Not surprisingly, this has led to a marked increase in the number of collisions between birds and airplanes. The danger to passengers is most serious when birds are sucked into an engine intake, as apparently happened in Ibiza.

As most of the bird-​strikes occur near airports, airport authorities have spent large sums of money on various methods intended to keep the birds at bay. At an airport in Vigo, on the northwestern coast of Spain, a novel approach is being tried. It involves the use of birds of prey, mainly goshawks, to patrol the runways. To increase the effectiveness of this method, recordings of gulls’ alarm cries are broadcast while the goshawks fly overhead. The threatening sight of the hawk flying above combined with the penetrating alarm cries persuades the gulls to seek a more secure haven elsewhere.

So far, the goshawks have had marked success in keeping the gulls away. It is hoped that with this innovative system, the planes will fly and let fly. After all, the birds were airborne first.