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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.
