Bird Strike

A bird strike—sometimes called birdstrike, avian ingestion (only if in an engine), bird hit, or BASH (for Bird Aircraft Strike Hazard)—is a collision between an airborne animal (usually a bird or bat) and a man-made vehicle, especially aircraft. The term is also used for bird deaths resulting from collisions with man made structures such as power lines, towers and wind turbines (see Bird-skyscraper collisions and Towerkill). A bug strike is an impairment of an aircraft or aviator by an airborne insect.

Bird strikes are a significant threat to flight safety, and have caused a number of accidents with human casualties. The number of major accidents involving civil aircraft is quite low and it has been estimated that there is only about 1 accident resulting in human death in one billion (109) flying hours. The majority of bird strikes (65%) cause little damage to the aircraft; however, the collision is usually fatal to the bird.

Most accidents occur when the bird hits the windscreen or flies into the engines. These cause annual damages that have been estimated at $400 million within the United States of America alone and up to $1.2 billion to commercial aircraft worldwide.