One in 3 Airports Hasn't Studied Bird-Strike Risk: FAA

Agency compelled to release statistics after Flight 1549

(NEWSER) - Collisions between airplanes and birds have increased dramatically since 2000, with the number of instances at 13 major US airports doubling. New York’s JFK topped the list with the most avian accidents—30—since 2000, with California’s Sacramento International the runner-up at 28, the AP reports. Both are in areas—wetlands at JFK, farmland around Sacramento—that attract birds. More»

(NEWSER) - The FAA wants bird strike information kept confidential to encourage accurate reporting by airlines, ABC News reports. “There is a serious potential that information related to bird strikes will not be submitted because of fear that the disclosure of raw data could unfairly cast unfounded aspersions on the submitter,” the agency wrote in a notice. More»

Search continues in Hudson; investigators plan to fish jet out tomorrow

(NEWSER) - The US Airways plane that ditched in the Hudson River yesterday is missing both engines, crucial clues in the investigation, the New York Times reports. Police divers aided by sonar are searching for them even as officials prepare to hoist the plane out of the water tomorrow. Investigators needs them “because there would be physical evidence … if there was a bird strike,” an official said. More»

Windshield was iced over, and he was flying in circles

(AP) - Coast Guard crews saw no signs today that the pilot of a small plane survived when it went down in the Gulf of Mexico about three hours after two F-15 fighter jets tried to make contact with him. The plane landed right-side up on the ocean surface and had been floating right after the crash, said the Coast Guard chief. Planes reportedly did not see a life raft deploy or anything to indicate the pilot—the lone person aboard—was alive. The military pilots reported that the plane's windshield had been iced over. More»

With skies safe, officials turn their attention to 'surface threats' on runways

(NEWSER) - "America's skies are the safest they have ever been," Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told reporters this week, and the stats back him up: Deaths from accidents in US commercial aviation have plummeted over the last 15 years, with none registered at all in 2011. Aviation officials say they are now turning their attention toward somewhere potentially much deadlier than the skies for commercial aircraft: the ground, and specifically, the runway. More»