Bird-hit jet in emergency landing

[HURAKAN]

Bird-hit jet in emergency landing


The plane could not be immediately moved because its landing gear was damaged.

Rome's Ciampino airport has temporarily closed after a Ryanair flight from Frankfurt suffered "substantial damage" as it made an emergency landing.

The budget airline said the plane experienced engine problems from multiple bird strikes as it came in to land at Rome's second-largest airport.

Passengers exited the plane using its emergency chutes.

The plane remains on the runway with one engine resting on the tarmac because of damage to the landing gear.

The plane, on flight FR4102 from Frankfurt to Rome, is being examined by Ryanair engineers and the Italian Aviation Authority.

Ryanair said the airport, which hosts several budget airlines, would be closed until some time on Monday afternoon.

Passengers describe the emergency Ryanair landing in Rome

All 166 passengers were evacuated. As a precaution, the airline said, two cabin crew and eight passengers were taken to a local hospital complaining of minor injuries.

Passengers said an engine had begun to smoke as the plane was coming in to land and it then rapidly descended.

A picture of the plane on the Ryanair website appeared to show red splotches on the nose cone and wings - presumably from the birds.

Other Ryanair flights would be routed to and from Rome's other airport, Fiumicino, the airline said, until Ciampino was re-opened.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/e ... 719716.stm

[Dionne]

There is another pic at Ryanair.com......multiple bird strikes bigtime....not just the nose of the fuselage but from wing tip to wing tip. It appears the pilots did one helluva job coming in hard enough to collapse a landing gear. This could have been a disaster.

[ohiostorm]

I work for an airline and I've seen birdstrikes but this one is insane. I've never seen something like this.

[Squarethecircle]

It's rare to get a bad bird crash - I do remember a story from a black box book about a similar situation, in which several birds caused an engine to fall off, dooming the plane (as it was just leaving the airport and had nowhere to go).