A bird smashed beak-first into a JetBlue flight bound for Florida Friday morning, forcing an emergency landing at Kennedy Airport.
Flight 671 departing from Westchester County Airport for West Palm Beach smashed into the nose of the Airbus A320 at about 9:30 a.m., the Federal Aviation Administration said.
It landed safely 25 minutes later with all 142 passengers unharmed. As passengers left the gate they saw the bird carcass still lodged in the plane.
“There was blood all over the windshield,” said passenger Mike Stewart, 66, Fairfield, Conn. “The bird’s body was stuck to the nose of the plane. It was impaled on the nose!”
He and another passenger told the Daily News they didn’t hear the strike or realize anything was wrong until the pilot announced they’d hit “a flock of birds.”
The JetBlue Flight 671 had departed from Westchester County Airport in White Plains at 9:05 a.m. bound for West Palm Beach, Fla., a spokesman for the airport said.
Passenger Greg Katavolos, 52, complained he had to walk to three different JetBlue counters to get help finding a new flight, despite having multiple sclerosis.
“I have a little bit of a limp and don’t like to walk around. It’s definitely an inconvenience to have to walk all over JFK,” said Katavolos. “JFK isn’t exactly a small airport.”
He said he’d scored the last ticket on an 8 p.m. flight bound for West Palm Beach.
The airline said in a statement passengers were given the option to take an alternate flight to Palm Beach International Airport or a trip back to Westchester. The pilot had decided to land “as a precaution,” JetBlue said.
The FAA, which will handle an investigation into the strike, did not identify the species of bird. JetBlue didn’t release information on the type of bird brained.
Feathered creatures living around New York’s airports and flying migratory routes through city airspace have been a major cause of concern among officials since the “Miracle on the Hudson.”
On Jan. 15, 2009 a U.S. Airways flight that departed La Guardia Airport for Charlotte, N.C. struck a flock of Canada Geese. Pilot Sully Sullenberger made a flawless emergency landing in the Hudson River, and all 155 passengers and crew survived.
The incident led U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services to capture and exterminate thousands of geese living in city parks — most notoriously at Brooklyn’s Prospect Park in 2010.
More recently, avian advocates have taken the federal agency to court for issuing a permit to the Port Authority to kill migratory birds with a shotgun at Kennedy and La Guardia, including snowy white owls.
The killing of wildlife — referred to as “take” in government jargon — hasn’t prevented large numbers of bird strikes, however.
According to FAA records there were 157 bird strikes at Kennedy since 2013.
There have been 118 at La Guardia in that same timeframe, records show.
