Correction: The positions of the navigation lights in this illustration were inadvertently reversed. The red light should be on the airplane’s left wing and the green light, on the right.
Birds fly into the left side of airplanes significantly more often than they strike the right, perhaps because they are less able than humans to perceive the red navigation lights on the left wings, according to a study by bird strike experts.1
The experts — Richard Dolbeer, a retired U.S. Agriculture Department scientist who has led numerous research efforts aimed at resolving human-wildlife conflicts, and William J. Barnes, CEO of Lumen International and holder of several patents pending for bird strike–reduction technologies — concluded that modifying the red, left-wing navigation lights and adding supplemental lights that have been designed specifically for avian vision could help birds notice the aircraft around them and reduce the number of bird strik…
