Suspected bird strike forces Minneapolis-bound flight to make emergency landing in NC

Suspected bird strike forces NC emergency landing

RALEIGH, N.C. —A suspected bird strike shortly after takeoff forced a Northwest Airlines flight to make an emergency landing Sunday at Raleigh-Durham International Airport, officials said. No one was injured.

Flight 1546 took off for Minneapolis just before 9 a.m. but quickly landed after the pilot heard a noise, airport spokeswoman Mindy Hamlin said.

Northwest spokeswoman Leslie Parker said a bird apparently struck the left engine and pilots shut it down. Northwest was rebooking passengers on other flights. Parker said the plane had 148 passengers and five crew members.

The type of bird and other details were not immediately released.

Bird-aircraft collisions are not unusual, but they are being more scrutinized since Charlotte-bound US Airways Flight 1549 ditched into the Hudson River in January after striking a flock of Canada geese after takeoff from New York’s LaGuardia Airport. Both engines on that aircraft were knocked out and all 155 people aboard survived.

An April report from the Federal Aviation Administration found that Raleigh-Durham’s airport has had six substantial incidents of birds colliding with planes between 1990 and this year, with the most recent case in 2002.

Hamlin has said the airport actively guards its property from geese through a wildlife management program that includes the use of pyrotechnics to frighten birds away. Birds are sometimes captured and relocated safely away from the airport with the help of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, she added.