Birds vs planes. Another bird loses and forces an emergency landing.

by Jamie Rhein on

The bird strike in the skies above LaGuardia airport yesterday didn’t faze the passengers–they didn’t know it occurred. When American Airlines Flight 1256 was arriving from Miami, getting ready to land, it met up with some of our feathered friends. Good-bye birds. Also, good- bye nose gear hydraulic system

After landing, the pilot discovered that the system wasn’t working, thus the 737-800 had to be towed to a gate. Upon inspection, a large bird was discovered stuck in the landing gear. This story reminds me of when we were hitting pheasants right and left in North Dakota last summer.

As you have probably read a bit about, bird strikes are quite the concern. In this human vs the wild story, the humans are determined to win and killing off some of the birds is part of the solution. Scott’s post explains just how.

Kent Wien, Gadling’s beloved pilot extraordinaire provided this photo of his own bird vs plane experience. This gross occurrence happened on a final approach to Barbados last year. Paradise can be hell. Seeing this photo made me think too bad that I don’t have shot of my husband removing a pheasant from the grill of our car.

New York to gas 2,000 geese to prevent another Hudson river incident

by Scott Carmichael on

Ah geese… They look so peaceful making their way through your local pond or river, but we all know what can happen when they decide to fly to a different pond or river.

After the bird strike of January 15th (really? That long ago?), there has been growing pressure to do something about the large number of Canada Geese around the local airports.

The solution is pretty macabre – authorities will gas them. The extermination will begin in about a week, during the period when the geese shed their feathers preventing them from flying.

A total of 2000 geese are expected to be removed from a 5 mile radius around LaGuardia and Kennedy.

It make me shiver, but then again, so does the thought of sucking a flock of geese into the engine of my plane.

Woody Harrelson chases zombies through La Guardia – breaks zombie camera

by Scott Carmichael on

Woody Harrelson flew into New York La Guardia airport, and was “greeted” by a photographer from AOL sister site TMZ.com.

Now, normally when celebs meet face to face with the paparazzi, they put on a smile, let them take a couple of photos, and get into their car.

There are of course celebrities that don’t like being photographed, so they take it out on the poor cameraman. In Woody Harrelson’s case, he didn’t see a cameraman, he saw a Zombie.

And apparently, the normal thing to do when you see a zombie is punch it in the face and smash its camera.

Of course, at that point the photographer/zombie didn’t give up like most people would, so he chased Harrelson outside the terminal building, to the parking lot.

You can’t make this stuff up – Harrelson really claimed he mistook the guy for a frikkin zombie.

According to Woody Harrelson, he is currently shooting a movie called Zombieland, and he was “still very much in character”.

I swear, if that excuse gets him out of trouble, I’m going to start using next time I get harassed by airport security.

A video of the “kerfuffle” can be found on TMZ.com, to make matters worse for Harrelson, this is not the first time the actor has been involved in an assault of a photographer, another TMZ.com photographer has a $2.5 Million lawsuit pending for an alleged attack in 2006.

The sky is falling!: Nope, it’s just plane parts

by Jamie Rhein on

Imagine this. You’re going about your busy day without much thought about what’s going on above your head and then Bam! There’s a bit of an explosion and pieces of metal start falling, some the size of a BlackBerry–others bigger. Not as big as a house, but bigger than a BlackBerry.

“Was Chicken Little right?” you might ask yourself and whoever else is close by, providing those people weren’t beaned by the falling objects.

This scenario is similar to what happened yesterday when an American Airlines flight out of LaGuardia heading for Chicago had an engine explode. Luckily, the plane was designed to fly on just one engine so the plane headed to JFK and landed safely.

Also, luckily, the engine parts fell over an industrial area. Instead of landing on Jimmy and Susy playing on their backyard swing set (although it is still cold out so perhaps they wouldn’t have been out in the backyard), the parts landed on top of a warehouse and scattered across a parking lot, cracking windshields and one of the building’s skylights.

Can’t you just hear the “My words!?” and “What the heck?!” of the people working inside the building? Particularly when they went outside and saw the small pieces of titanium like metal scattered every which way.

There is an investigation to find out what caused the explosion. The McDonnell Douglas-80 plane had 88 passengers on board who now have an interesting story to tell about the time they helped make the sky fall.

The airline’s take is that these things happen. True, but a bit unnerving. I’ve been on three planes that have been diverted because of engine trouble. I wonder if anyone had to duck and cover down below? [via wcbstv.com]

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March “lion” slams east coast

by Tom Johansmeyer on

From New Hampshire to the Carolinas, March came in, as the saying goes, like a lion. Snow, sleet and wind gusts reaching 30 mph have lead to for motor vehicle deaths, school closings and chaos at airports.

More than 900 flights have been canceled at New York area airports (JFK, Newark and LaGuardia). Hundreds more at Logan International Airport in Boston never left the ground, where the airport closed for more than half an hour to clear a runway. In Philadelphia, more than 40 people were stranded overnight.

Even the bus operators got into the delay and cancellation game. Greyhound and Peter Pan scrapped trips into and out of New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and New Jersey.

So, get comfortable. It’s going to take a while to sort this mess out.