A FLYING SCHOOL AIRCRAFT FORCED TO LAND AFTER A BIRDSTRIKE

A flying school light plane aircraft was today forced to return to wilson airport nairobi after a collision with an eagle.

Bird Strike is common and can be a significant threat to aircraft safety. For smaller aircraft, significant damage may be caused to the aircraft structure and all aircraft, especially jet-engined ones, are vulnerable to the loss of thrust which can follow the ingestion of birds into engine air intakes. This has resulted in a number of fatal accidents. The nature of aircraft damage from bird strikes, which is significant enough to create a high risk to continued safe flight, differs according to the size of aircraft. Small, propeller-driven aircraft are most likely to experience the hazardous effects of strikes as structural damage, such as the penetration of flight deck windscreens or damage to control surfaces or the empennage. Larger jet-engined aircraft are most likely to experience the hazardous effects of strikes as the consequences of engine ingestion. Partial or complete loss of control may be the secondary result of either small aircraft structural impact or large aircraft jet engine ingestion. Loss of flight instrument function can be caused by impact effects on the Pitot Static System air intakes which can cause dependent instrument readings to become erroneous. Complete Engine failure or serious power loss, even on only one engine, may be critical during the take-off phase for aircraft which are not certificated to 'Performance A' standards. In the case of bird ingestion into more than one engine, all aircraft are vulnerable to loss of control. Such hazardous ingestion is infrequent but may result from the penetration of a large flock of medium sized birds or an encounter with a smaller number of very large ones. In some cases, especially with smaller fixed wing aircraft and helicopters, windscreen penetration may result in injury to pilots or other persons on board and has sometimes led to loss of control. (See the images at the foot of this article.) Although relatively rare, a higher altitude bird strike to a pressurised aircraft can cause structural damage to the aircraft hull which, in turn, can lead to rapid depressurisation. A more likely cause of difficulty is impact damage to extended landing gear assemblies in flight, which can lead to sufficient malfunction of brakes or nose gear steering systems to cause directional control problems during a subsequent landing roll. A relatively common but avoidable significant consequence of a bird strike on the take off roll is a rejected take off decision which is either made after V1 or which is followed by a delayed or incomplete response and which leads to a runway excursion off the departure end of the runway.