A bird strike disabled one of the two engines on an American Airlines Airbus A321 shortly after it departed from New York’s LaGuardia Airport, prompting the pilot to make an emergency landing at John F. Kennedy International Airport, authorities reported on Friday.
According to an Associated Press report, the incident occurred on Thursday evening when flight 1722, headed to Charlotte, North Carolina, departed from LaGuardia Airport at 7:43 pm. The Airbus A321 was carrying 190 passengers and six crew members. Airline officials confirmed that no injuries were reported.
At 7:52 p.m., the pilot declared an emergency and requested a diversion to JFK Airport, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey confirmed in a statement.
“Mayday, mayday, mayday, American 1722 engine failure,” the pilot radioed to air traffic control, as recorded by the aviation site LiveATC.net. “It appears we have an engine failure, but we’re still working through it. We hit birds on the way out,” the pilot explained.
The flight landed safely at JFK without further incident.
American Airlines, in a statement reported by the AP, confirmed the diversion was due to a “reported bird strike.”
Bird strikes are a growing concern in aviation, with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reporting 19,400 incidents across 713 US airports last year. While such strikes rarely cause significant damage, incidents like this underscore their potential risk to commercial aviation.
