The moment the windscreen of an $85 million Eurofighter Typhoon belonging to the Spanish Air Force collided with a black-backed gull at over 600mph has been captured on camera. The fighter jet was performing in a display at the San Javier Air Base when the incident occurred.
The windscreen of the jet was shattered by the strike. The pilot, who was fortunately unharmed, immediately disengaged from the display and was able to perform a safe landing. Most onlookers did not realise what had happened until afterwards, when the reason for the plane’s early landing was explained over the radio.
The announcement prompted aviation photographer Javier Alonso de Medina Salguero, who also had not realised a collision had happened at the time, to look back over his photographs. He found he had inadvertently photographed the moment of collision very clearly. It is rare that these split-second instances get recorded on camera, with this one only being caught by chance.
Costs for these kinds of repairs are not publicly available, but some outlets have speculated that a windscreen replacement could run into the millions. The advanced manufacturing techniques for the glass and the amount of technology that connects to the windscreen unit in a modern fighter jet means that such a part is unlikely to come cheap.
Bird strikes are a serious hazard for both military and civil aircraft. They pose a serious danger to passengers and crew and, even when nobody is hurt as at the San Javier incident, can lead to costly repairs. Scarecrow Group offers a complete range of solutions for proactive prevention of bird strikes, both through market-leading dispersal and through recording and analysis of bird activity.
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