Cairns Airport has most bird strikes
CAIRNS Airport has the highest rate of aircraft bird strikes out of Australia's 10 major airports.
New figures from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau show there were 105 strikes within a 5km radius of the Cairns airport last year.
Cairns was ahead of Sydney airport with 100 strikes and Brisbane airport with 80.
But Cairns Port Authority chief executive officer Neil Quinn said the airport’s stringent policy of reporting remote and near misses was the likely reason the figure was high.
Skytrans chief executive officer Simon Wild also said he did not believe the rate of bird strikes at the airport was higher than anywhere else.
“We haven’t personally suffered that much damage in Cairns,” Mr Wild said.
His airline operates about 24 flights a day out of the airport.
“The bats moving around in the afternoon are probably the biggestproblem,” he said.
A 20-year study of bird strikes at the airport from 1983-2003 showed that out of 734 reported strikes, nocturnal species such as flying foxes, bush stone curlews and microbats accounted for 20 per cent of incidents.
Other common species were masked lap wing and black kites.
Most damage to aircraft happened if the birds were sucked into the engine, but the severity varied according to the bird’s size and the number of birdsinvolved in the strike.
Mr Quinn said the authority had appointed consultants including CSIRO to conduct a year-long study of flying-fox activity around the airport.
It had also spent more than $2 million in the past three years to improve drains around the airport to reduce bird activity.
The latest data from the airport showed there were 13 strikes in January and 15 in February, none of which damaged aircraft.
Most of the strikes involved small birds and bats.
Mr Quinn said the reporting system started in mid-2004.
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Big hits: Cairns Airport has the highest rate of aircraft bird strikes out of Australia's 10 major airports.
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