By Sarah Hooper
A STUDENT pilot narrowly escaped death this week after an eagle smashed into his cockpit window.
Bloody images showed the massive bird’s body inside the cockpit after it struck the plane at more than 120mph.
Glass was shattered across the tarmac[/caption]
The trainee pilot was taken to hospital after the bloody encounter[/caption]
The incident happened as the 23-year-old student was having a lesson on Wednesday at an airport in Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic.
The massive white-tailed eagle reportedly hit the plane propeller before smashing through the windshield.
Czech police released a statement explaining: “Shortly after 2pm, a Cessna aircraft made an emergency landing at the Hradec airport, in which pilot training was taking place and which collided with an eagle at a speed of approximately 200kph.”
The bird was split in half and photos showed it’s head near the plane’s main controls.
The bottom half of the bird’s carcass flew and hit the back seats in the cockpit, reports say.
“As a result of the collision, the front propeller and windshield were damaged.
“Both the pilot and the student were ruled out of alcohol consumption by a breath test.”
The instructor was unharmed and did an emergency landing at the airport, but the unlucky student had minor injuries and was taken to the hospital.
The damage to the Cessna aircraft is estimated to be around £37,000.
Earlier this year, passengers were shocked when their plane made a sudden U-turn after a bird knocked out one of its engines.
The flight had left for Newark in New York at 8.10am and the plane was over the Essex coastline when the bird strike occurred.
The carrier made a sudden U-turn and returned to Heathrow at 9.20am, after reaching 30,000ft.
But bird strikes still occur, and although 65 per cent of them do not cause severe damage to jets they are considered a big risk to flight safety – and are almost always lethal for the animals involved.
The flight instructor was left unharmed after the terrifying incident[/caption]
The eagle destroyed the front window of the plane[/caption]
Category: News, World News, Airports, flight safety
