NTSB to consider 2008 bird collision that killed 5

WASHINGTON — For the five men who took off from a small Oklahoma airport aboard a business jet that ran into a large bird, there was no miracle river landing.

The twin-engine Cessna Citation 500 had climbed to 3,100 feet and was passing over a corner of Oklahoma City’s Lake Overholser on March 4, 2008, when it collided with a white pelican, one of North America’s largest bird species. Witnesses said they heard a noise that sounded like an engine stall, and then saw the plane plunge nose down trailing a plume of gray smoke about four miles from Wiley Post Airport.

Pilots Tim Hartman, 44, and Rick Sandoval, 40, and business executives Garth Bates Jr., 59, Frank Pool Jr., 60, and Lloyd Austin, 57, were killed.

The National Transportation Safety Board is scheduled to meet Tuesday to consider the safety implications of the accident and whether more should be done to prevent similar tragedies.

The dangers of bird-aircraft collisions have received extensive scrutiny since US Airways Flight 1549 ditched into the Hudson River in January after striking a flock of Canada geese following takeoff from New York’s LaGuardia Airport. The incident was dubbed the “Miracle on the Hudson” when all 155 people aboard survived.

Where Flight 1549 became celebrated for what went right, the Oklahoma City accident is illustrative of the many things that can go wrong.

Although bird populations generally are declining, nearly all large bird species have been increasing since the enactment of environmental protections in the 1960s and 1970s. Air traffic has also increased dramatically, and even though traffic is currently down due to the poor economy, annual takeoffs and landings in the United States are forecast to surpass 1 billion a year by 2020.

“We have birds and planes that are literally fighting for air space,” said Richard Dolbeer, an expert on bird-aircraft collisions.

One resurgent species is the white pelican, which averages about 16 pounds but can weigh up to 30 pounds.

“I don’t want to be an alarmist, but in my view something has got to be done about this,” NTSB acting chairman Mark Rosenker told an aviation club in Wichita, Kan., this spring.

Wiley Post is sandwiched between two lakes and adjacent to a wildlife refuge. The Federal Aviation Administration recommends “wildlife attractants” be no closer than five miles from the outermost edge of an airport.

FAA also requires airports receiving federal aid that are surrounded by wetlands or water to assess the risk of wildlife collisions. Though Wiley Post would appear to meet those requirements, airport officials didn’t conduct a risk assessment and had no plan for reducing the risk of collisions, according to NTSB documents.

Documents also suggest the airport may not have been diligent in reporting bird collisions to a national database maintained by FAA and the Department of Agriculture. From 1990 to June 2008, Wiley Post reported eight bird strikes to the database. Will Rogers World Airport, Oklahoma City’s largest airport, reported 364 bird strikes during the same period.

NTSB recommended a decade ago that airports and airlines be required to report all bird strikes to the database, but FAA has kept reporting voluntary. Only an estimated 20 percent of bird strikes are reported to the database. The agency is just now commissioning a study to see if reporting should be mandatory.

Former NTSB Chairman Jim Hall said mandatory reporting would identify where the problem is the most serious and where countermeasures have been the most effective.

Radar records in the Oklahoma City crash show 19 blips believed to be a flock of birds passing over Lake Overholser in the path of the Cessna Citation minutes before the collision. But while the birds are identifiable in hindsight, there were nearly 6,000 blips in the general vicinity of Oklahoma City minutes before the crash.

FAA has been testing bird-detecting radar at a handful of airports. The technology is still primarily useful as a tool for wildlife biologists who track birds on airport property and employ measures to drive them away.

Some experts believe the ultimate solution may be equipping planes with some kind of technology designed to drive birds away — perhaps flashing lights or noise that birds find particularly irksome. FAA, however, has no such research under way.

“I’m sure that if we had more resources thrown at it we would develop more effective uses of the technology than we have,” said John Goglia, a former NTSB board member. “Until we give it the right focus, (the problem) is going to continue to grow.”

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On the Net:

National Wildlife Strike Database: wildlife.pr.erau.edu/public/index.html