Bird strikes are an unescapable risk of aviation. Fortunately, most strikes result in only minor damage, but combine high speeds and large birds (or lots of them) and the outcomes deteriorate. We received a few pictures this week which show a close call between a Piper Arrow and turkey vulture which happily ended without human injury.

The pictured aircraft is a 1979 Piper Arrow registered to Flight Safety International in Vero Beach Florida. According to the sketchy details sent with the pictures, the Arrow was flying somewhere over Florida when it struck the turkey vulture. Per the same report, the aircraft flew “fine”, but was a bit “mushy” on landing.

We were unable to trace a date to the pictures, nor did a search of the NTSB accident database or FAA incident database turn up a hit for the N number - but we will check again in a few weeks. We also came up short on an internet search. If you have more information, please contact us via the reply link below.

N6533C as an N number has its own history - having once graced the Pan Am Clipper “Flying Arrow” in the guise of a DC-6B which entered service in 1952.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 3rd, 2006 at 7:55 pm and is filed under Plane Events, Planes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.