Delta Flight At DBIA Hits Flock Of Seagulls, Forcing Aborted Take Off

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Daytona Beach, FL - A Delta flight at Daytona Beach International Airport was rolling down the runway when it hit a flock of seagulls, causing damage to the plane.

The flight was taking off around 1:30 PM on Monday, but it never actually went airborne. The plane was throttling up down the runway when it hit the flock of about 5 or 6 birds. Take off was aborted and the plane turned around and went back to the airport.

The plane was examined to see if any of the birds were ingested into the engine and a rescue flight was brought in at around 5 PM to take the passengers.

"We do a lot to mitigate wildlife at the airport," said Jay Cassens, Director of Business Development at DBIA, on Volusia Today. "One of the things that we recently did was applied for a grant through the TSA. It was roughly about $2 million to get rid of about 40 to 50 acres of trees on the property to mitigate some of the wildlife that was there." He went on to say "we're always out there using what they call 'bird bangers' or 'bird scarers.'" Those are devices that make loud noises to scare birds away. And if any of the air-field operation workers see birds in and around the airfield or the runway they try to get rid of them.

Everyone was OK, and according to Cassens, "the passengers were actually thrilled that they didn't take off after hitting those birds."

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