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Bird strike results in Ryanair emergency landing

A flock of birds caused a Ryanair plane to make anemergency landing at Rome's Ciampino airport Monday, the Irish company said in a statement. (ASI)

"The aircraft... suffered multiple bird strikes on landing at Rome Ciampino Airport and currently remains on the runway," the company said, adding that two crew members and eight of the 166 passengers received unspecified medical treatment.
Passengers leapt out of the emergency exits and down escape chutes to flee the plane, whose left landing gear was badly damaged.
The airport -- used by most low-fare airlines serving Rome -- was closed.
Ryanair said Ciampino would remain closed until at least late afternoon Monday as efforts to remove the aircraft were hampered because of "substantial damage" to the landing gear.
Alessandro Montemaggiori, an expert from the Italian Bird Strike Committee, told AFP that European starlingswere to blame for the incident, in which "both engines ingested the birds."
European starlings weigh only about 80 grammes (three ounces), but they travel in flocks of up to 10,000 "and act as a single thing," said Montemaggiori, who was at the airport assisting the investigation.
The birds were responsible for the most fatalities of any plane accident caused by birdstrike, that of a Lockheed Electro turbo-prop in Boston Harbour in March 1960, when 62 people died.
Italian airports report nearly 600 birdstrike incidents a year, the ANSA news agency reported. In the United States, the overall figure is some 36,000, according to the Bird Strike Committee USA.
Although birdstrike accounts for only one percent of fatal plane crashes, more than 219 people have been killed worldwide as a result of wildlife strikes since 1988.
European starlings winter in Italy, arriving in October from central and eastern Europe, Montemaggiore said.
They are attracted to the relative warmth of cities, and some 1.5 million migrate to Rome each winter, the ornithologist added.

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