Logan officials discuss bird deterrent strategy

By Carolyn Y. Johnson
Globe Staff

With blaring horns, propane cannons, pyrotechnics, and -- if necessary --a shotgun, wildlife technicians try to startle, harrass, and haze birds to keep them away from Logan International Airport, to avoid scenarios like the US Airways crash on Thursday.

At a press conference this afternoon, Massport officials described the bird deterrent efforts taken at an airport that is particularly attractive to birds, as a wide open seaside space that sits in migratory bird paths.

Efforts are made to make Logan "as unwelcoming to birds as possible," said Ed Freni, director of aviation. That includes everything from planting special grass that does not go to seed, to scaring them away with cannons.

"We don't want to ring the dinner bell for birds," Freni said.

In 2008, there were 61 recorded collisions between birds and planes at Logan, out of 390,000 flights. But the vast majority of bird strikes don't even cause much damage, much less a crash like the one in New York. Last year, only one strike -- a Jet Blue flight in November -- caused damage to the plane, he said. That plane was climbing, had a bird strike, and landed safely.

The most severe bird strike collision occurred at Logan in 1960, when an Eastern Airlines flight collided with a flock of birds shortly after taking off, and plunged wing-first into Boston Harbor. There were 72 people aboard, and all but 10 died.

Bird strikes are as old as aviation itself, with the first recorded bird strike in 1905 by aviation pioneer Orville Wright.