How common are bird strikes on planes?

A bird strike was believed to be responsible for flames erupting from a Virgin Australia plane engine on Monday night.En route to Melbourne, passenger Janina Faulkner said shortly after take off from Queenstown she saw flames up to three metres long shooting out from the engine."There was quite a banging noise, they were having trouble trying to control the plane. I was a little bit freaking out ... very scary times, I thought it was over," she told Stuff.Despite the stress it caused those in the air and on the ground, bird strikes are not uncommon for pilots.To put it simply, a bird strike is a collision between an aircraft and, well, a bird or a number of birds.Civil Aviation Authority of New Zealand (CAA) reported that bird strikes tend to happen between 50 and 800 feet during the takeoff and landing phases of a flight."Bird encounters at altitude are rare, although, the highest ever recorded bird strike occurred over the West African coast when a jet collided with a bearded vulture at 37,000 feet!"The CAA said turbine-engine aeroplanes are more vulnerable to bird strikes than piston-engine aeroplanes because of the speed and lower noise level.Birds don't get enough warning to get out of the way and when disturbed on the ground they fly up straight into the aircraft's path.How common is it?The Australian Aviation Wildlife Hazard Group explained bird strikes happen every day, and occur most commonly at airports (90 per cent according to ICAO), when aircraft are landing, or taking off.The majority happen at low altitudes: 50–60 per cent of bird strikes occur at zero to 50 feet, and 30 per cent between 50–500 feet.Between 2008 and 2017, the Australian Transport Safety Board recorded 16,626 bird strikes.Near the end of 2023 the New Zealand Aviation Wildlife Hazard Group (NZAWHG) chair person Lizzie Civil said Aotearoa was doing "fairly well with bird avoidance". The bird strike rate at airports were about four in 10,000 aircraft movements.Helicopters fly in the same airspace as birds but it's actually more rare for there to be a collision, the CAA said. "They seem to perceive the presence of helicopters a lot easier than they do aeroplanes and move out of their path".The CAA told Stuff there had been 210 bird strikes so far this year from collisions all around Aotearoa with the highest amount of 54 in the month of April.How to avoid bird strikes?The CAA says the responsibility of avoiding bird strikes "falls entirely on pilots"."Air traffic control can advise of possible hazards when they know about them, and aerodrome operators will endeavour to keep the bird numbers under control, but ultimately it is the pilot who must avoid them."In the instance of the recent Virgin Australia flight, a Queenstown Airport spokesperson said the rate for bird strikes was recorded to be low."Bird activity varies according to the season and migratory patterns. The primary species of concern at Queenstown are oyster catchers and plovers, along with smaller birds such as finches, starlings, and sparrow."They said a range of measures are used to deter birds from 'settling on the airfield and surrounds'."These include mowing grass to keep it low and less attractive to birds, spraying to reduce food sources, and use gas cannons, acoustic machines, lasers, and pyrotechnics to scare birds away."Can it be avoided?There are definitely processes and checks that occur prior to take-off to prevent bird strikes, but there is no guarantee that birds and the aircraft you're travelling on won't collide.Despite it being a scary experience for passengers, pilots are trained to handle bird strikes, wherever they collide.David Morgan, Air New Zealand's chief operational integrity and safety officer, said in a statement in 2023 that ''bird strikes are not uncommon''.''Aircraft are designed with this in mind and our pilots are trained for these scenarios. When a bird strike is suspected, our engineering team will complete a full aircraft inspection to ensure it is safe to continue service,'' he said.This story was originally published by Stuff and has been reproduced here with permission.