Wow, all because of birds...

Yeah...birds suck big time (just ask Sully).

We sucked a snow goose into the #3 engine on the DC-10 one morning landing in MSP. Ruined a perfectly good Pratt and Whitney...’course the goose didn’t fare well either. I remember reading many years ago about geese bringing down an AWACS out of Elmendorf AFB.

http://www.cnn.com/US/9509/alaska_crash/09-23/

Tragedy when this stuff happens.

When I was in flight school in the eighties, we had a student/IP flying west of Ft. Rucker over the Pea River (a favorite gathering area for vultures) and a turkey vulture went though thier wind screen...stayed alive...it went nuts in the cockpit but the pilots got the aircraft on the ground safely, unfortunately the bird died. Scared the shit out of the rest of us. All of the sudden we had superpower vision...we saw vultures miles away and flew like hell to stay away from them. To this day I am very aware of bird flying near me.  There have been a few vulture strikes at Mother Rucker that didn't go so well for the aircraft and pilots....beware of birds.