5/9/2005: C-130 versus bald eagle, C-130 wins [warning, graphic]

From Strategypage, where there are two other images:

The U.S. Air Force C-130 was flying near Tacoma, Washington when it collided with an bald eagle. The pilot got splattered with blood. The C-130 and eagle landed together, but only the C-130 was still alive.

If that isn't a political metaphor, I don't know what is.

this is the perfect follow-up post to the previous picture.

What's new, certainly not the C-130 screws America. Shame that eagle found one of the C-130s that are allowed to fly.

The eagles face looks like he's still pretty much alive. Poor bird looks like he never knew what hit him. Hey aren't those birds becoming rather rare now?

Actually, last I read, the Bald Eagle has rebounded to the point where it should have come off the Endangered list, but they're leaving it there for the additional protections that status provides. (I'm not sure if it's completely off or downgraded to "threatened," though.)

The picture of the pilot covered in bird guts is pretty striking as well.

Thanks wolf, it's always good to keep up with what's going on in the world.

OUCH!

I'm confused re: what we're looking at -- is this the cockpit? Did the eagle get caught in a window or break through the windshield or hit a propeller then...?

Just trying to understand how it got where it did.

-mike

It was downgraded to "threatened" in the lower 48, taken off the list in Alaska (not sure if it was ever endangered there). Thankfully, we have more than 50 breeding pairs in Colorado at last count, and as many as 800 of them winter here. (you should check out the Colorado DOW website, it's pretty cool).

I believe you're looking at the bulkhead in back of the cockpit. With my professional CSI training gleaned from television and movies, I'd say the bird disintegrated on impact with the windshield and what was left is scattered inside.

You want some bald eagles? Come to my neck of the woods. Take as many as you like.
We have a large chicken industry round these parts. We also had the odd bald eagle winter here a few years back. To help the poor endangerd birds the farmers began hucking the dead chicken carcasses out into the fields for the eagles.
Fast forward to today and and there are and estimated 20-30 full time and 200-300 seasonal bald eagles in my little corner of the world.
Which was all well and good. Until the stupid eagles started grabbing chickens from the farm about 1/2 a mile across a field from my place and then trying to take them to one of their favorite roosts on the hill top about 1/4 mile the other side of my place. They are continuously harrassed by crows during this flight. I now have the joy of periodiaclly having to clean up dead chickens/chicken parts from my yard, deck or (my favorite) hood of my car that the eagles have dropped during their trip.
Yuck.

Oh poo. I failed my CSI exam. So that's an armrest for a chair on the left. The sun's shining in from above, so it has to be the front of the plane where all the windows are, right? How many seats in the cockpit?

My guess would be the bird came through a panel(window) by the pilots left knee, passed the pilot and ended up on the floor by the navigators seat.

C-130 Aircrew member perspective...

What you guys are looking at the bottom of the photo is the back of the pilot seat, and the armrest is the engineer seat which is behind and between the pilot and copilot seat. You are looking at the cockpit left side circuit breaker panel (basically under the leftside windows), and the eagle flew though the pilots left foot window. The right side of the pic is toward the front of the aircraft,and there are 4 crew seats in the cockpit. Several pics of this incident went through Herk safety offices world wide. Pretty nasty!

I saw this picture a few months back on another web site. I thought it was a fake. As I poked around the web I came across this site UT was talking about. There were the other two pictures that put it all into perpective. Lots of windows in the front of these things. Plenty of ops for something (or someone) to come crashing through.

1. The eagle wiper needs to be upgraded.
2. The guy posing for the post-splatter picture has a lot of class.
3. Welcome, 130! Nice to have a bonafide expert on this rather arcane subject...

Welcome aboard, 130Load!

Your apparently expert opinion is helpful and welcome. It sounds like you spend a lot of time around these kind of environments (minus bloody bird parts, I reckcon). I wonder what other tales you could tell.

Anyway, thanks for the info. Looking forward to more informative posts.

Cool, thanks for the info, 130Load.
How did you find us?

Oh man - I can relate to those pics! I had a bald eagle crash into my windsheild a few years ago while I was heading into town doing about 45. It smashed the windsheild, dented the top of my truck, bent my antenna...etc.
I always wondered if I could go after the government for the damage that it's "protected symbol" did to my truck. lol