Tue, Nov 11, 2008
Officials Say Plane Suffered 'Multiple Bird Strikes'
An encounter with a large flock of birds while on approach to
Rome Ciampino Airport resulted in a rough emergency landing for a
Ryanair jet Monday morning.
The Associated Press reports the Boeing 737-800 took off in
Frankfurt as Flight FR4102 with 166 passengers and six crew
onboard. It was descending to land at the Italian airport when it
"suffered multiple bird strikes," according to Ryanair spokesman
Stephen McNamara.
The birds were ingested into at least one of the airliner's two
turbofan engines, necessitating an emergency landing.
Ciampino Airport fire official Marco Ghimenti told Italy's Sky
24 the airliner's left maingear gave way when the plane landed near
the far end of the airport's lone runway. It's not yet known
whether the bird strike was causal to the landing gear failure, or
if that was from the rough landing.
The accident closed Ciampino through Monday, as crews worked to
remove the stricken narrowbody from the runway. Photos from the
scene show the plane completely intact, but resting heavy on its
left engine nacelle.
Alessandro Montemaggiori, an expert from the Italian Bird Strike
Committee, told Agence-France Presse he believes European starlings
were to blame. Though each small bird weighs only about three
ounces, they travel in flocks as large as 10,000 birds "and act as
a single thing," said Montemaggiori.
As many 10 persons onboard the airliner were taken to local
hospitals with unspecified injuries, but all have since bene
released according to The Belfast Telegraph.
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