Birds and Jet Engines

This article discusses how incidents of bird strikes with jet engines can be avoided. According to a US Department of Transportation report, bird strikes have steadily and dramatically increased from 1770 reported in 1990 to 9840 in 2011, representing a fivefold increase in 20 years. The rise in strikes, as in other parts of the world, is due in part to sizable increases in large bird populations. According to the DOT report, since 1988, bird strikes have resulted in 229 deaths worldwide. Annually, these incidents have caused nearly 600,000 hours of aircraft downtime, and $625M in damages. All commercial jet engines must comply with bird ingestion regulations established by worldwide regulatory authorities. These regulations are all similar and call for demonstrations of an engine’s ability to ingest birds in small, medium, and large categories. Not being able to meet these regulations can have serious consequences for an engine company.