25 animals most commonly struck by aircraft
Two years after he helped invent the airplane, Orville Wright became the first person to hit an animal with a plane when he struck a bird over an Ohio cornfield in 1905. Animal strikes by aircraft have remained relatively uncommon ever since, according to data from the Federal Aviation Administration. Between Dec. 18, 2020, and Dec.18, 2023, just 47,439 of more than 99 million total domestic and international flights reported an animal strike.
Even more rare are animal strikes that cause damage to the aircraft, making up just 3.9% of incidents. But even such limited incidents can be very costly. The FAA estimates that losses incurred by the aviation industry due to wildlife strikes could amount to nearly $500 million per year.
Stacker examined which animals were most frequently involved in aircraft strikes using data from the FAA. Specifically, the analysis looks at incidents that had been reported over the past three years as of Dec. 19, 2023, using FAA data. Though the dataset has incidents for more than 600 species, about one-third of incidents had unknown species reported.
Unsurprisingly, the FAA reports that birds account for 97% of all wildlife strikes, and the remaining species of the top 25 most commonly struck animals are bats. The most common types of bird strikes involve hitting the windscreen or being ingested into the engines. In fact, the engine is damaged more often than any other aircraft component, constituting 27% of damaged aircraft components from 1990 to 2019.
Species identification post-incident can be difficult and thus often involves sending remains to the Smithsonian Institution's Feather Identification Laboratory. The resulting information is relayed to airfield managers and the relevant authorities to develop wildlife mitigation strategies tailored to the behaviors and habitats of the most-frequently struck species per area.
