NTSB meets on Okla. plane brought down by pelican

WASHINGTON — Federal safety officials are considering whether more needs to be done to prevent bird-plane collisions as they study results of an investigation into the cause of a crash in Oklahoma last year that killed five men.

Documents already made public by the NTSB show the 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 business jet plunge nose down trailing a plume of gray smoke. It crashed about four miles from Wiley Post Airport, sending up a giant fireball.

Killed were pilots Tim Hartman, 44, and Rick Sandoval, 40, and three executives with an Oklahoma engine manufacturer and its parent company: Garth Bates Jr., 59, Frank Pool Jr., 60, and Lloyd Austin, 57.

The danger of bird-aircraft collisions has 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.

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 also has increased dramatically, and even though traffic is down due to the poor economy, annual takeoffs and landings in the United States are forecast to surpass 1 billion a year by 2020.

One resurgent species is the white pelican, which averages about 16 pounds but can weigh up to 30 pounds and has a wingspan that can stretch up to 9 feet.

Bird experts at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington who tested feathers and “smear” from the wreckage identified the species as white pelican.

On the Net:

National Transportation Safety Board: www.ntsb.gov