Birds Strike – Impact on the Safety of Civil Aircraft Operations in Poland in 2008–2018

The authors assessed the real threat to civil aircraft traffic in Poland resulting from bird strikes. It was found that in the period 2013–2018, the probability of such events increased by four times. Data for this work were downloaded from the ECCAIRS database maintained by the Civil Aviation Authority. Air traffic events have been collected for several years in this database. An assessment of the energy of bird collision with the aircraft, resulting from the bird’s mass and relative speed of movement, was also presented. Ways to minimise the risk of collision were described by introducing crew warning systems and means to scare off birds from the airport grounds. The method of testing the resistance of turbine engines to the foreign body’s absorption was also shown, as well as design methods for increasing the engine resistance to bird strikes.