Southwest Boeing 737 suffers double engine bird strike on rotation

A Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 performing flight WN350 from Kansas City to Dallas Love Field suffered a double engine bird strike on rotation earlier today. 

The crew reported vibrations climbing through 9000 feet and decided to return to Kansas City landing 22 minutes after takeoff, the airplane a 10 year old Boeing 737-700 registered as N967WN suffered damage to both of its engines and to its nose, no injuries were reported and the airplane was quickly swapped out for another 737, its passengers continued their flight to Dallas as planned though with a five hour delay. The airplane is currently sitting on the ground at Kansas City undergoing repairs.

While bird strikes are a considered minimal risk for a flight they do present a major inconvenience for airlines, one study found that out of 16,694 bird ingestion events, 4,227 led to one-engine damage and only 141 led to two-engine damage. Modern jet engines are designed to withstand the effects of bird ingestion events (birstikes), when in development they are required to go thru testing in order to demonstrate that they can withstand a bird ingestion (ranging from a single small bird to multiple large ones) and still be able to maintain adequate thrust/capacity from the engine.


However, a two engine bird strike is extremely rare and much more dangerous when compared to a single engine strike. A great example of this is US Airways flight 1549, it suffered a two engine birdstrike on climb out from La Guardia, lost power to both engines and was unable to return to the airport. It ditched in the Hudson River, in a miracle, no one got hurt. This goes to show just how lucky this Southwest flight was, it still had power in both engines and was able to return to Kansas City.

Southwest flight WN350 Feb. 24 flight log

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