In the 1970s, Sea-Tac Airport became the first in the United States to hire a full-time biologist to design a program to keep aircraft from hitting wildlife and birds from getting sucked into jet engines.
The effort appears to have worked.
Federal Aviation Administration Spokesman Mike Fergus said during his eight-year tenure, no planes departing or arriving at Sea-Tac have crashed due to a bird strike in Washington state.
"From an air traffic standpoint around Puget Sound, small commuter aircraft have reported bird strikes, but thank goodness, they've been small birds or small aircraft," Fergus said. "Still, hitting a bird can be extremely devastating -- it can take an airplane down very quickly -- it's a serious concern, though rather rare."
A search of the Federal Aviation Administration database of airplane crashes revealed no crashes related to bird strikes at Sea-Tac Airport. However, several cases of damage from bird strikes were reported anonymously to NASA. Aircraft in Washington state most often hit seagulls, Canadian geese, European Starlings, Killdeers and Barn swallows, according to the FAA.
The port designed its replacement of wetlands dislocated by Sea-Tac Airport to drive birds away from the airport and its three runways. The wetlands next to the airport are heavily forested with trees like cedars and cottonwoods to keep large flocks of birds from feeding and nesting there, and the port sowed 158,000 native plants known to be unattractive to birds, eschewing all plant varieties that produce fruits, nuts and berries.
The port also developed its own grass seed mix containing a fungus that makes it less appetizing to some birds and insects. Trees and bushes were planted near the airport's creeks to shield them from birds' view; the trees are all approximately the same height, discouraging roosting birds by not providing them with a lookout perch. The port also strings netting across ponds near the airport. Port biologist Steve Osmek scares ducks and some adult hawks, who have already formed their territory at the airport, away from departing and landing planes with a small pistol that makes a loud clamor like fireworks.
The airport is creating or enhancing 113 acres of wetlands near the airport and 65 acres in Auburn, along the Green River, to mitigate the impacts of filling about 20 acres of often septic tank and junk car-riddled wetlands. In Auburn, the port planted 151,000 plants to replace wetlands for waterfowl habitat, including small lakes and ponds and even platforms for osprey.
Since June 2001, nearly 100 raptors such as hawks and owls have been trapped alive near Sea-Tac Airport and relocated to safer habitats in northern Washington. Elizabeth Leavitt, the port's director of airport environmental programs, said late last year that the airport's resident hawks "know their way around."
Collisions between birds and planes date back to 1908, when the first known aircraft bird strike was reported, according to a Civil Aviation Study. The first fatality followed four years later when the unfortunate pilot of a Wright Flyer struck a gull with his wing.
As planes have grown faster and multiplied in the skies, the danger grows: a two pound bird can hit with more than twice the force when a plane is flying at 400 miles per hour than at 200 miles per hour, according to the port's website. Still, no matter what an airport does, they can't control what happens outside their property -- like ducks flocking on the Hudson River.
The U.K.'s Civil Aviation Authority cited studies that showed that while 85 percent of bird strikes involved airplanes below 800 feet, 15 percent occurred outside of an airfield. Another U.K. analysis found that as many as 40 percent of bird strikes occur outside of an airport.
P-I reporter Kristen Millares Young can be reached at 206-448-8142 or kristenyoung@seattlepi.com.
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