(Photo: Flight Report)
A Turkish Airlines 737 travelling between Istanbul and Nevsehir, Turkey, hit a bird nose-on. The dome forming the front caved in. The plane landed safely with no injury to any of the 125 passengers on board.
A spokesman for Turkish Airlines insists that it's not a big deal. That portion of the plane is made with soft materials in order to absorb impacts like this. The Daily Mail reports:
A spokesperson for Turkish Airlines told MailOnline Travel: 'The damage of the nose area (radome) by bird hit is a common incident on civil aeronautical operations.
'The radome area of a plane is constructed by soft materials (composit) to minimalize the impact of such hits.
'Therefore, such standard/normal deformation occurs as a natural result of such incidents.
'One can also state that the critical bird hits in aviation is the ones that occur on the engine area. Any other area of the aircraft than the engine area, such as radome, wings, hull, do not pose a risk when hit by a bird.'
That's good news. Perhaps Turkish Airlines can use this photo for its optimistic advertising.
-via Daily Telegraph