A Boeing 737 Max encountered a flock of geese, leaving the windshield shattered and glass in the cockpit
AaronP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images
- A Flair Airlines plane was hit by a bird shortly after taking off from Toronto Pearson Airport.
- The windshield was left shattered and one pilot told air traffic control they couldn't see outside.
- The pilots were uninjured and the plane made a safe return to the airport.
A Flair Airlines captain escaped injury after the windshield of his aircraft was shattered by a birdstrike.
The incident occurred on October 24 on Flight F8641 from Toronto to Winnipeg, operated by a Boeing 737 Max.
Shortly after takeoff, the pilots issued the urgency signal PAN-PAN, according to an air traffic control recording from LiveATC.net.
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada said in a report that the plane encountered a flock of geese and at least one of them hit the windshield, "causing it to shatter."
According to the ATC recording, one pilot said: "The windshields are shattered and we cannot see outside."
He added that they would need to stop on the runway after returning to Pearson and would probably be unable to taxi further.
The TSB report added that a pilot had minor injuries due to the shattered glass, although the airline said the pilots were not hurt.
Captain Matt Kunz, Flair's vice president of flight operations, told Business Insider: "The bird struck the top of the captain's side windshield, causing damage and resulting in some glass pieces in the flight deck, but there were no injuries."
He added that the flight operations team ensured the crew was safe and offered the option of taking leave.
"The pilot was not injured and, in fact, was back flying the next day," Kunz said.
On Friday, data from FlightAware showed the affected plane, registered as C-FLKO, flew to Pinal Airpark — a storage, maintenance, and repair facility in Arizona.
Bird strikes can be particularly risky for flights. The 2009 "Miracle on the Hudson" — when Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger landed an Airbus A320 on New York's Hudson River — occurred after it encountered a flock of Canada geese, resulting in both engines shutting down.