It’s on the news, looks like bird strike !
They are still investigating if the bird caused the crash, whether or not it was a contributing factor alongside something else.
Ibra wrote:
It’s on the news, looks like bird strike !
A great cormorant is a seriously big animal. I would think it can definitly bring down a Robin.
It’s pretty serious at low level, almost hit one flying wood & fabric low near Dover cliffs, there is lot of potential to lose control even with no damage, this happened to a friend on the Mooney, you can see the extent of damage at 140kts, even with a tiny 10cm bird !
These pics were taken in Cannes airport, I recognize the fgddh and landscape…
Yes it was on the way to Cannes, I was told about 1000ft agl over terrain while joining from the west and staying bellow Nice TMA, same flight profile as Robin accident…
Would a bird of this size go through the wing spar?
The alternative is that it incapacitated the pilot and the RHS was not able to fly the plane.
Thread title changed because the “1500ft” was really just poor media reporting
The video shows how a leisure drone or a bird of similar weight would damage a light aircraft wing. Even if it did not compromise the internal structure, the asymetry in lift and drag would be a huge problem even without considering further damage which could be caused by the airflow ripping the skin off the damaged part of the wing. Bird strikes with anything larger than a pigeon are terrifying for light airplanes.
I encouter birds at pretty much every flight (which are basically circuits at the moment). Half the time there is a « what is he gonna do? » moment.
We should be happy those accidents don’t occur more often.
I shudder to think what would happen if a bird this size hits one of the fuel tanks. Quite a few of those in our planes are close to the leading edge.
It’s a good case for always flying as high as possible. Doesn’t stop the risk entirely, there are some substantial birds which fly quite high (certain vultures in Spain for instance one of which brought down a TB20 in 2016 if memory serves right but have been seen high in the flight levels…) but at least you’ get out of the way of the more ground bound birds.
Also makes a case for avoiding ground hugging airspace wherever possible
