Queens, NY – Mid-Air Collision Between Goose and Plane Leaves Jet with Bloody Nose

Queens, NY – A Delta Air Lines shuttle flight from Boston got a bloody nose, courtesy of a bird flying near La Guardia Airport.

The latest midair collision between a commercial airliner and a fowl happened just before 6 p.m. as the Boeing MD-80, which had taken off from Logan Airport at 4:30 p.m., struck the bird on final approach to the airport, an FAA spokeswoman said.

The crew of Flight 1393 “followed all established procedures and landed without incident,” Delta spokesman Kent Landers said. Nobody was hurt.

An airport worker who saw the plane taxi to the gate said people on the runway were stunned.

“There was blood on the nose of the plane all the way up to the windshield,” he said.

“There was a big dent. I saw feathers attached to the plane.”

The worker said the pilot was “amazed” when he got out of the plane to inspect the damage.

“He said he heard it when he was coming in for a landing. He thought it was a goose.”

Geese have been blamed for several recent collisions with planes. In the most notorious case, they brought down US Airways Flight 1459, which made a miraculous safe Hudson River landing.

Planes from La Guardia and Newark have each had nine bird strikes that have done substantial damage between 2000 and 2008, while Kennedy leads the nation with 30 substantial strikes, according to the FAA.