Yet another plane in New York on Tuesday night was forced to turn around and make an emergency landing after geese smacked into the aircraft.
The JetBlue flight was taking off from Westchester Airport when a pilot aboard Flight 571 to West Palm Beach, Fla. declared an “emergency landing” shortly after its 6:45 p.m. take off.
The pilot told air traffic control:
“We got to come back. We hit two big geese.”
The flight was just six miles away from the airport when it made its turn around approach and landed safely back on the ground seven minutes after takeoff.
Unlike other flights including the now famed Hudson river landing piloted by Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, the two geese this time around managed to hit the planes windshield and not the engines.
Speaking to the New York Post passenger Janice Hilbrink said of the incident:
“I was petrified. I heard the noise. It was very loud and the plane had a lot of turbulence. The pilot told us the windshield was cracked.’’
This is the second time in less than a week that a plane in New York has made an emergency landing, on Thursday a Los Angeles bound plane returned to the gate after a goose was sucked into one of the jets engines.
This morning JetBlue released the following statement:
“Out of an abundance of caution for the safety of the passengers and crew onboard, the captain elected to return to the gate.”
This most recent JetBlue flight was carrying 54 passengers.