The latest scare headline from the government is “Airplane ‘bird strikes’ have climbed dramatically, FAA records show.”
Is this really worth worrying about? Or have the number of incidents increased dramatically just because the number of flights has increased dramatically? And is the number of strikes really high enough to cause concern?
An article in the Los Angeles Times said:
Aircraft at Los Angeles International Airport struck birds or other animals in 940 instances from 1990 through 2008, according to data released Friday by the Federal Aviation Administration.
The strikes involved gulls, hawks, pigeons and other creatures hitting windshields, wings and stabilizer areas.
Only 36 of the incidents, or 3.8%, resulted in substantial damage, records show. There were no fatalities. At least five times, planes reported hitting foxes.
According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Air Transport World, there were 650,000 take offs and landings at LAX in 2007. The government bird strike report covers a 19-year period. That an average of just 49 animal contact incidents per year. (In addition to birds, the government report also included foxes and lizards but it’s highly unlikely that any of those animals got up in the air high enough to cause much engine damage).
That’s equal to one incident every 13,265 flights. And that doesn’t mean one bird-in-the-engine incident, because the report indicates that the impacts may well have been on the planes’ wings or stabilizers.
Although we’ll take 1 in 13,265 odds, liberals will not. They will demand that President Obama appoint a new government Bird Czar. He will call together a blue ribbon panel to study the matter and they will propose a new bird tax on all flyers to compensate the birds’ grieving families.
It won’t really solve the problem, but taxes liberal solutions never do.
Source: Los Angeles Times, Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Air Transport World
