Reserve C-17 aircrew lands safely after bird strike damages two engines
An Air Force Reserve C-17 Globemaster III aircrew from the 446th Airlift Wing here safely landed their huge cargo aircraft after hitting about a dozen California sea gulls seconds after takeoff Oct. 11 at Travis Air Force Base, Calif.
Two of the jet's four Pratt & Whitney F117-PW-100 engines were damaged in the bird strike that happened at about 700 feet above ground level at about 12:45 p.m.
"The pilots did a fantastic job of flying," said Master Sgt. David Losk, one of two loadmasters on the flight. "Hitting that many birds, and especially birds of that size, could have very easily brought that plane down."
1st Lt. Bryan Parker, from the 97th Airlift Squadron here, was at the controls as the C-17 aircrew left Travis for Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska, and Yokota Air Base, Japan, with 20 space-available passengers and 35,000 pounds of cargo.
About 45 seconds after takeoff and flying at 170 knots - almost 200 mph - both Parker and Capt. Brian Robins, the aircraft commander who is also from the 97th Airlift Squadron, saw they were heading right into a flock of about 30 sea gulls.
"We both called 'Birds!' and by the time we said it, we hit them," Robins said. "Flying at 170 knots, we had a half-second, maybe a full second, to respond. Buzzards, eagles, even ducks have the self-preserving instinct to tuck in their wings and dive when we fly overhead. But in this case, as soon as we saw them and called out 'Birds!' - boom-boom - we hit them."
Instinctively, Parker, who has about 250 hours flying time in the C-17, pulled back on the yoke to gain altitude when he first saw the flock of sea gulls.
"Once I realized what was going to happen, I tried not to get too distracted with the takeoff," Parker said. "I knew that a sea gull hitting the outside of the aircraft wasn't going to be a major problem, but a sea gull going through an engine is a different story."
Once Parker leveled out the aircraft at about 1,100 feet, Robins, as planned in the event of an in-flight emergency, took over the controls. Together, he and the rest of the Reserve aircrew went through the checklists to prepare for an emergency landing at Travis.
Master Sgt. Jeff Clarke, another loadmaster from the 97th Airlift Squadron, looked out the pilot's left-side window, keeping an eye on a KC-10 refueling aircraft in the pattern. Maj. Fran Whiting, a 782th Airlift Squadron pilot, handled the radio duties with the Travis command post and air traffic controllers.
Losk, in the cargo section of the aircraft, was instructed to look out the two small porthole windows to look for any obvious damage to the engines.
"There was nothing that I could see," Losk said. "I didn't hear, or at least I don't think I heard that birds hit us. It had to happen at the same time the landing gear retracted. But I knew something happened since there was a very bad vibration coming from the engines."
As the aircrew scanned the displays that show the status of the engines, they saw the number one engine's oil, which should have read around 15 quarts showed only three quarts.
As a precaution, engine number one - on the outboard side of the left wing - was shut down. The vibrations stopped, according to Parker, but a strange noise was coming from one of the two engines on the right wing.
"There was damage to one of the two engines on the right side, but we couldn't tell which one," Parker said. "We decided not to shut down one of them just in case it was the one perfectly working engine. So, we prepared to land with three engines running."
As Losk prepared the passengers for an emergency landing, Robins did what he had to do to get the aircraft safely on the ground as soon as possible.
"I did a fairly aggressive turn and nursed the engines to get on final," he said. "As I added power on final, we had even more vibrations."
Six minutes after takeoff, the C-17 touched down safely on the Travis runway. Since there was unknown engine damage, the aircrew didn't use the thrust reversers that are normally used to help bring the aircraft to a stop, relying solely on the brakes.
"Everything worked just like we practice in the simulator once a quarter," Robins said. "The aircrew worked together and did a great job."
According to Chief Master Sgt. Roy Sheppard, flight chief for the 446th Aircraft Generation Squadron's Blue Sortie Generation Flight, the damage from the bird strike was limited to six fan blades - three on each engine. Those blades were replaced at Travis. The C-17 engines minimizes fuel burn, and rugged rotating components are designed to tolerate sand, pebbles, ice or other debris found at remote airfields around the world. The engines are the military version of Pratt & Whitney's commercial PW2000 series, which is used on the Boeing 757 aircraft.
Over the last 15 years, there have been 41,535 bird strikes reported throughout the Air Force, according to Maj. Pete Windler, from the Air Force Safety Center's Bird Aircraft Strike Hazzard office at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M. Over those 15 years, those bird strikes have caused more than $521 million in damages, including 17 aircraft that crashed, killing 33 people, Windler said.
Twenty-four fatalities came from one incident. In September 1995, and E-3B Sentry airborne warning and control system (AWACS) aircraft crashed when its two left-wing engines ingested several Canada geese on takeoff at Elmendorf, killing all on board.
Air Force-wide, October has recorded the most recorded bird strikes over the last 15 years - 5,768. September ranks second with 5,356 recorded bird strikes. December has the lowest recorded bird strikes with 1,517 in the same time period.
"Looking back, I guess I can say it's an experience that I can add to my flying history," Parker said. "This was a pretty serious bird strike incident. I know what it's like now." (FROM AIR MOBILITY COMMAND PUBLIC AFFAIRS).
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