The number of reported wildlife strikes involving civil aircraft increased nearly six-fold between 1990 and 2012, with a record 10,726 strikes in 2012 (Figure 1), according to a report prepared for the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).1 Over the 23-year period, the number of reported strikes — of birds, terrestrial mammals, bats and reptiles — totaled 131,096, the report said.
Commercial air carrier aircraft accounted for 87,670 (67 percent) of total strikes and 6,246 (58 percent) of those recorded in 2012, the report said. In comparison, the 1990 data showed that the 1,354 commercial aircraft strikes accounted for 73 percent of the total. The rate of strikes for commercial air carriers rose from 15.14 per 100,000 aircraft movements in 2000 to 25.12 in 2012.
Despite the overall increase in the period’s reported strikes, the number of damaging strikes was lower in 2012, when 606 such strikes were reported, than it was in 2000, when the figure reached a peak …
