One of the most high profile cases of an airplane colliding with a bird in the air was 2009's Miracle on the Hudson, when pilot Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger safely landed a passenger plane in the river after Canada geese flew into both its engines. The story was a media sensation, eventually becoming a film that starred Tom Hanks, but one detail of the ordeal never made it to primetime. Carla Dove's Feather Identification Lab at the Smithsonian received 69 samples from federal investigators to examine after the crash, Andrew Zaleski writes for the Washingtonian. She and her team play a crucial role in aviation safety by studying feathers, bird carcasses, and something called "snarge," the viscous remains that sometimes are all that's left of a bird after it's been struck by a plane.
"We get degraded samples that are sometimes disgusting," Dove tells Zaleski. "It's not a very glamorous job." Zaleski goes deep into the world of forensic ornithology to understand what role these scientists play in making air travel safer for both birds and humans. He unearths some fascinating facts—with 45,000 flights crisscrossing the US every day, some are bound to hit birds that have found a habitat in the open spaces of airfields. In 2023, there were 18,000 recorded bird collisions, and this is where Dove's lab comes in. Identifying the birds, either through the lab's extensive collection of bird carcasses or via DNA sequencing, makes major changes in the industry, from how engines are designed to changes in airfield grass height. Read the full story. (Check out more Longforms here).
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