Kirtland's BASH team works to keep airplanes safe from birds, wildfire

  • Published
  • By Ryan Stark
  • Nucleus staff writer
KIRTLAND AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. --  Anyone who has flown an aircraft or worked on a flight line can tell you that wildlife and aircraft don't mix. The Air Force Safety Center's Bird/ Wildlife Aircraft Strike Hazard program at Kirtland works to help alleviate interface between aircraft and animals at installations worldwide and maximize mission capability.

Wildlife biologist Dan Sullivan, who is acting chief of the three-member BASH team, says the project is working to reduce the risks posed by wildlife at airfields before potentially deadly mishaps can happen.

Though any type of animal can become an airfield hazard -- even large mammals such as deer can appear on Kirtland's runways -- birds are a common danger in and around Air Force installations.

"The larger birds are the most dangerous birds out there," Sullivan said. "They're big, they're dense. The larger the bird, the bigger the hazard."

But even minor incidents have a cost.

"Even a small bird ingested into an F-16 can put that aircraft out (for repair)," he said.

When it comes to minimizing the chances of contact between animals and aircraft, the stakes are high. As one example, Sullivan cites the 1995 crash of an Air Force Boeing E-3 at Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska, which crashed after Canadian geese were sucked into two of its engines at takeoff.

Twenty-four Airmen lost their lives in that mishap, and he says it was a watershed moment for the Air Force. Though the Air Force had bird strike and wildlife concerns prior to the incident, the Elmendorf fatalities brought programs like BASH into the spotlight. Funding and a more professionally staffed program followed.

"We shouldn't have to wait for a mishap and to lose people in an aircraft to make changes," he said. "As professional biologists, we know what birds are attracted to."

What draws birds and other animals is the uninhabited space they find near active runways at Air Force installations.

Once-isolated bases and airports become integrated into an urban landscape, leaving the relatively deserted runways as an attractive sanctuary for wildlife.

"A lot of our airfields will be out in rural areas," he said. "Over the years, there's been a lot of encroachment, people building up and moving around airfields."

In a previous job, Sullivan helped to manage wildlife near New York's Kennedy Airport, which is in America's most populous city.

"Now it's a wildlife refuge out there," he said. "You've got this island, a big green patch. When you think about it, an airfield is a relatively safe area for wildlife. Other than the aircraft, there's very little movement out there. It's a pretty safe place for (animals) to be."

The most obvious way of removing the animals would be depredation, which means killing off the problem animals, Sullivan said.

"Depredation is probably the last thing you want to do, and there are steps before that," he said. "The best way is to decrease the attractiveness of your airfield."

Modifying the airfield environment is the first and best non-lethal measure to take. Harassment with noisemakers can also prove effective, he said.

"If the animal will not leave and it's an immediate threat to aircraft, you'll want to depredate," he said. In those cases, BASH works directly with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other statelevel wildlife and environmental agencies. Those agencies' regulations require that non-lethal means be attempted first.

For more about the Air Force BASH program, go to afsec.af.mil/ organizations/bash.