New York City — A possible bird strike just after takeoff forced an American Airlines passenger plane Thursday night to make an emergency landing at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City, officials said.
American Airlines Flight 1722 had taken off from LaGuardia Airport and was bound for Charlotte Douglas International Airport in North Carolina when it was diverted to JFK Airport shortly after 10:00 p.m. local time due to ‘a “reported bird strike,” the airline confirmed to CBS. News in a press release.
There were no injuries among the nearly 200 people on board the Airbus A321.
“We are grateful to our crew for their professionalism and apologize to our customers for any inconvenience this may have caused,” the airline said.
The Federal Aviation Administration confirmed the incident and said in a statement that it was investigating.
Cell phone video provided to CBS News captured a flash of what may have been birds hitting one of the plane’s engines.
“Pilots are definitely trained to fly on one engine, so everything worked as it should last evening,” Robert Sumwalt, former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, told CBS News on Friday.
In 2009, the “Miracle on the Hudson” involved a bird strike and a plane that flew the same route as Thursday’s American Airlines plane. All 155 people were rescued in that incident, and pilot Sully Sullenberger became a hero of instant aviation.
More than 19,000 bird strikes were reported in the US by 2023 at more than 700 airports, according to the Federal Aviation Administration, which maintains a database where he records collisions between aircraft and wildlife.
In April, a bird strike that caused the engine to catch fire, forced an American Airlines flight from Columbus, Ohio, to Phoenix, Arizona, to return to Columbus about 30 minutes after takeoff.
“Birds still fly, and they will always fly, and airplanes will always fly,” Sumwalt said. “So the trick is to keep those two separate.”
