The student pilot was on the last leg of a solo, cross-country flight in the Cessna 152.
About 10 miles west of his destination airport in Pembroke Pines, Florida, he encountered a flock of birds. While attempting to evade the flock, a large bird struck the right wing leading edge, resulting in substantial damage to the airframe.
The pilot was able to continue to his destination and land uneventfully with the bird lodged in the wing.
Probable Cause: An inflight collision with a bird while approaching the destination airport.
To download the final report. Click here. This will trigger a PDF download to your device.
This March 2024 accident report is provided by the National Transportation Safety Board. Published as an educational tool, it is intended to help pilots learn from the misfortunes of others.
Very good thing that buzzard did not hit the cockpit or he would not be here.
Looking at the photo in the NTSB Docket and reading the NTSB MOR reveals that the bird dangling from the wing during landing is or rather, was, a turkey buzzard.
The birds were here first ……..
A lot of damage and thank goodness he was able to land it…..
I’m pretty sure that C-152 predates the bird that hit it…
Scaring me.
I wonder if those whistles you could buy at the auto parts store to scare deer off the road would have any effect, besides irritating the neighbors.
Unless your neighbor is a dog they will never hear it.
Nothing can be done about that. Apparently the student was unaffected, and continued to FLY THE AIRPLANE as his instructor taught him to do.
That’s aviation working right there – proper training, and execution of same. Well done!
My goodness- it would be interesting to know what sort of bird was extracted from the wing to have made this amount of damage – a swan or similar?
Frozen turkey (remember that WKRP Thanksgiving episode?). That was no starling that hit that wing.
Regards/J
But on WKRP, they dropped live turkeys.
“God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly…”😂
There, but for the grace of God, go we all.
I have come close so many times….