Bird ingestion is the term used when birds enter the intake of a jet engine . It is a common aircraft safety hazard and has caused fatal accidents . In 1988 an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 ingested pigeons into both engines during take-off and then crashed in an attempt to return to the Bahir Dar airport ; of the 104 people aboard , 35 died and 21 were injured . In another incident in 1995 , a Dassault Falcon 20 crashed at a Paris airport during an emergency landing attempt after ingesting lapwings into an engine , which caused an engine failure and a fire in the airplane fuselage ; all 10 people on board were killed . Jet engines have to be designed to withstand the ingestion of birds of a specified weight and number , and to not lose more than a specified amount of thrust . The weight and numbers of birds that can be ingested without hazarding the safe flight of the aircraft are related to the engine intake area . In 2009 , an Airbus A320 aircraft , US Airways Flight 1549 , ingested one Canada goose into each engine . The plane ditched in the Hudson River after taking off from LaGuardia International Airport in New York City . There were no fatalities . The incident illustrated the hazards of ingesting birds beyond the " designed-for " limit
US Airways Flight 1549
US Airways Flight 1549
Airbreathing jet engine