BSI: Bird Strike Investigation

Every day, tucked five floors above the eight-ton African elephant that greets visitors at Washington's Smithsonian Natural History Museum, Carla Dove tackles some of the Air Force's dirty work—literally—at her forensic ornithology laboratory. Behind a door marked FEATHER IDENTIFICATION LAB, Dr. Dove (yes, that's her real name) sorts through shredded feathers, bits of claws or beaks, and sometimes nothing but bird goo called "snarge"—all in an effort to discover, CSI-style, what types of birds crash into military and commercial airplanes. (Article continued below...)

Dove's work will be back in the public eye Tuesday as the National Transportation Safety Board holds a public hearing in Washington on US Airways Flight 1549, which made that unforgettable water landing in New York City in January. In the months since the "Miracle on the Hudson", the Smithsonian lab has identified the birds that destroyed that flight's engines as migratory Canada Geese, including at least one male and two females.

On a recent tour of her facility, Dove, an easy-going "40-something" woman with blond hair and the accent of her native Fulks Run, Va., showed NEWSWEEK forensic evidence from Flight 1549, including a smelly tub of bagged up snarge and feathers. Each day's mail brings Dove and three assistants 10 to 18 envelopes full of bird remains like these, sent by the U.S. Air Force, Navy and commercial airports, which are compared against 620,000 bird specimens in the museum's collection. Sleuthing out these birds' IDs isn't just for statistical purposes; it could potentially save lives, both human and bird. Though most reported bird strikes have no fatalities (except, of course, for our feathered friends), identifying the fallen creatures impacts how they are managed by airports and wildlife officials. And aircraft manufacturers have factored in the weight of the species involved in strikes when designing plane engines.

"In order to fix the problem we need to know what it is," explains Eugene LeBoeuf, the U.S. Air Force chief of the Bird/Wildlife Aircraft Strike Hazard team. Most of Dove's work comes from the Air Force since the agency requires that all bird strikes be reported. Since 1985 the Air Force has reported more than $250 million worth of damage from strikes involving one species alone, the American White Pelican. Though strikes involving pelicans are less frequent than incidents with smaller birds like Horned Larks and Mourning Doves, the pelicans are the most costly offenders because of the damage they can do with 15-pounds of girth. These pelicans have been responsible for 21 strikes to Air Force craft, two of them downing planes, says LeBoeuf. When damaging strikes like that happen, Dove's lab swings into high gear—providing analysis as quickly as a few hours or a day.

While the Air Force’s bird strike database has been online for years (though difficult to find), the Federal Aviation Administration data only became publicly available in April, amidst objections that releasing the data might paint an unfair picture; reporting to the FAA is voluntary, and not all airports report all their strikes. In fact, the FAA estimates that only 20 percent of strikes are reported. Catherine Lang, the FAA acting associate administrator for airports says that despite the low figure, the FAA believes that the most damaging strikes do come to their attention.

In May, Sen. Charles Schumer of New York announced that he will propose legislation to make reporting of all commercial bird strikes mandatory. He noted that the $387 million the FAA has provided since 1997 for addressing wildlife management around airports is awarded based on current estimates of bird strikes. He argues that the problem may be larger than the public knows, and it's not going away: recent studies suggest that many of the most hazardous species are increasing in population size and seem to be growing accustomed to noise generated by humans and their machines.