Birds and Airplanes

This incident happened a month or so back. I came across these pictures and thought this would be a good subject for the blog. This airplane intended to make a stop and go visit, deliver supplies, people, and mail and then be on it's way. However, they got to spend a couple extra days with us. When they were heading down the runway to take off, they met a flock of birds. The pilots were quick enough to abort the take off and skid to a stop short of the end of the runway, which is a good thing as the there is quite a drop off at that end of the runway.

If you look close enough at the picture below and use a little imagination, you can see the outline of a bird in flight on the nose of the airplane.

Several birds were ingested into this engine, which was the main reason for the aborted takeoff and the extra time spent visiting our base. The engine had to be replaced, they had to fly in a new engine, and a crew to make the engine swap.This picture shows the skid marks from the emergency stop. The runway is dirt with a thin layer of gravel on top. At the end of the runway there is some metal runway matting, which provided a little better friction for stopping the plane. Doesn't look like they come with anti-lock brakes.

This is the aftermath, looks like the birds lost.