Have you noticed birds acting strange in last 48 hours? Birds strike Joe Bidens plane

Bird Strike Cripples Joe Biden Plane in California


Air Force Two, a modified Boeing 757 government airplane carrying Vice President Joe Biden, struck birds Thursday night as it was on approach to Santa Barbara Airport in California, an administration official told ABC News.

Sources familiar with the incident said to the passengers, the landing didn’t feel any different than normal, no one could tell the plane hit a bird. But the pilots of the plane noticed the bird strike when it happened.

The plane touched down safely between 10 and 10:30 pm PT without further incident, allowing Biden to continue on his itinerary, officials said. Biden was in Santa Barbara for a campaign fundraiser Friday morning.

“When there is a bird strike our safety procedure is to land safely as quickly as possible to get an assessment of what happened and review the extent of damage if there is damage,” said Lt. Gregg Johnson of the 89th Airlift Wing at Joint Base Andrews, which maintains the presidential fleet.

It’s not clear as of now whether there was any damage to the plane; mechanics today began the process of conducting normal checks on the plane just make sure everything was OK. It’s engines were seen under inspection by mechanics on the airport tarmac.

“The Vice President left Santa Barbara this afternoon as scheduled, aboard an alternate U.S. Air Force aircraft,” a spokesperson for the vice president said.

The alternate plane — the military version of a Gulf Stream 3 — assumed the designation “Air Force Two” when the Vice President boarded for the return trip, according to military policy.

[link to abcnews.go.com]

Investigation: Bird strikes on the riseFriday,

April 20, An Eyewitness News investigation found the risk of bird strikes has actually increased in the area three years after the US Airways plane was forced to make an emergency landing in the Hudson River.


Eyewitness News wanted to ask the Port Authority some questions about this, but never heard back from them.

Perhaps it could be because their efforts to reduce bird strikes are failing at an alarming rate.

Pilot: "Delta 1063 has had an engine failure on the right engine declaring an emergency due to a bird strike."

A check of the FAA data base reveals that bird-strikes are occurring at an alarming rate at JFK and LaGuardia.

This despite promises by the Port Authority to manage bird populations following the near disastrous bird encounter in 2008, better known as Captain Sully's "Miracle on the Hudson".

That plane took off from LaGuardia.

Data shows since then, bird strikes at LaGuardia are up 28% from 107 bird strikes in 2008 to 137 last year.

It's even worse for JFK, where bird strikes have shot up from 167 in 2009 to 256 last year, a 53% increase.

"80%, up, up, up, up! That's failure," said Steven Garber, the former head of Wildlife Management.

A former head of Wildlife Management for the airports says The Port Authority and Federal Government are courting disaster.

"Port Authority and JFK and Department of Agriculture all promised they'd take care of the problem and they didn't, they didn't, year after year, after year goes by," Garber said.

[link to abclocal.go.com]

Dude, same here, 2:30!!!

I go out a lot at night, early morning, to star watch. The past couple of weeks I've noticed birds chirping between midnight and 2 am. They didn't sound alarmed, just chirping, and occasionally a song.