Angry birds: collisions between birds and airplanes are going to get worse

Angry birds: collisions between birds and airplanes are going to get worse

Dec 16th 2013, 15:00, by Katie Drummond

It's the flight risk that TSA agents can't screen for: a single bird getting sucked into an airplane's jet engine can wreak damage serious enough to require an emergency landing or, much more rarely, even cause the plane to crash. Known as "bird strikes," the incidents are surprisingly common, with an estimated 10,760 reported strikes at US airports in 2012 alone. But despite ongoing efforts to curb the prevalence of bird strikes, experts warn that they're likely to become more common — and that where strikes by some species are concerned, this winter might be particularly severe.

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