Editor's Corner: HIGH IMPACT

THE WINTER MIGRATIONS OF CANADA GEESE, displayed in marvelous V formations that remind us the air is a bit colder than before, typically run in a straight north-to-south trajectory.
It's not inconceivable that the birds that probably struck US Airways Flight 1549 also were bound for Charlotte.
January in south central North Carolina is fairly mild compared to Long Island. Mecklenburg County has some good creeks and parks to nest in, some splendid grasses and grains. If the winds were favorable and they flew as fast they could, their trip might take about 12 hr.

But think of all the other flocks that fly by LaGuardia and JFK and numerous other airports across North America throughout the year undetected by radar. "They are a hazard to the safety of New Yorkers," State Sen. Hiram Monserrate (D-Jackson Heights) remarked outside LGA's US Airways terminal four days after Capt. Chesley Sullenberger saved the day and all of his passengers and crew, orchestrating a
controlled ditching of an A320 into the Hudson River.

Monserrate and State Sen. Eric Adams (D-Brooklyn) are proposing legislation to fund a study to examine the bird problem and explore new technologies to help prevent future incidents. Although bird strikes have increased over the years (7,600 were reported in 2007 versus 1,750 in 1990), the majority of occurrences are not dangerous and result in little or no damage to aircraft.

Of course, it doesn't help that as air traffic has increased, so too have geese populations. Even if a very small percentage of strikes result in catastrophic damage--imagine the force a 10-lb. goose could generate during takeoff hitting fan blades spinning at 4,000 rotations per min. ("There was a loud bang and the plane shook . . . you could see smoke and fire," Flight 1549 passenger Alberto Panero said of the incident)--the call for robust mitigations and better technologies is a pressing one and not just a local issue. In November, a flock of starlings inflicted major damage to a 737 landing at Rome Ciampino.

Had the outcome of Flight 1549 been tragic, surely there would have been some serious speeches and initiatives on Capitol Hill in this regard. But policy, all too often for these types of issues, tends to follow disaster, not precede it.

The training pilots receive in simulators certainly has improved over the years, as have the capabilities of aircraft engines. But there is an enormous cleft between simulating a scenario where both engines are struck consecutively by birds and testing it.
Though promising, developing and implementing sonar technology and bird-detecting radar systems probably won't be the silver bullet that strikes the heart of the challenge.

Awareness and action on multiple fronts is imperative. Airports must explore new ways to temper the habitat surrounding them. The effectiveness of pyrotechnics and noisemakers pales in comparison to basic stewardship practices such as keeping the grass cut and eliminating refuse and standing water.

What happened on the Hudson may well have been a miracle, but it should never have had to happen. Now that it has, the ability of birds and planes and supermen like Chesley Sullenberger remains no less immense and daunting.