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Flight 1549 Crash Reminiscent of Orange County Flight
Over the past thirty years, there have been 130 recorded incidents in which birds and airplane engines met. The LA Times recounts one such 1997 incident:
A Northwest Airlines flight made an emergency landing after a bird flew into the Airbus A320's engine. All 103 passengers and crew aboard Flight 208 were uninjured, but they described a harrowing half-hour ride as the crippled plane circled over what was then the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station to burn excess fuel before landing at the Santa Ana airport amid a phalanx of firefighters, airport security and other personnel.
Yesterday's crash landing of US Airways flight 1549 into the Hudson River is being considered a miracle: all 155 passengers and crew survived and quickly evacuated before the plane sunk.