U.S.-bound flight from Cuba made emergency return after bird strike, engine fire
A Southwest Airlines flight from Cuba to the U.S. reportedly returned to Havana after a bird strike sparked an engine fire.
Southwest Airlines flight 2923, carrying 153 people, survived damage “to an engine and the aircraft’s nose,” while en route to Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport Sunday afternoon, the airline confirmed. No injuries were reported by passengers or the six-person flight crew.
One passenger described a “burn smell” to Miami, Fla., station WSVN. He said it caused his eyes to redden and his chest “to burn.”
Video posted to social media shows oxygen masks dangling as the Boeing 737′s cabin filled with smoke shortly after the 75-minute flight departed. Passengers were booked on alternate flights.
The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service said birds and other wildlife strikes account for at least $900 million in damage to U.S. civil and military aircraft every year. Such incidents are believed to annually account for “a small percentage of all bird deaths.”
New Yorkers saw what can happen when birds and planes mix in January 2009, when Captain Chelsey Sullenbeger safely landed US Airways Flight 1549, carrying 155 people, in the frigid Hudson River after it struck a flock of Canada geese near LaGuardia Airport. That heroic landing became known as “The Miracle on the Hudson.” Tom Hanks played Sullenberger in “Sully,” director Clint Eastwood’s 2016 film about the incident.
With News Wire Services
