Description

On 3 August 2006, a Boeing 767-300 being operated by Qantas on a scheduled domestic passenger flight from Melbourne to Sydney encountered a large flock of birds during rotation for a dusk but still daylight normal visibility take off and sustained multiple bird strikes. Abnormal function of the left engine followed and was attributed to bird ingestion but the situation was sufficiently contained for the crew to decide to continue to Sydney rather than turn back and the remainder of the flight was, given some precautionary engine handling decisions, uneventful.

Investigation

An Investigation was carried out by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB). It was established that the birds had numbered between 20 and 50 and had all been a small species of cockatoo called a Corella. It was considered by the airport operator and by wildlife experts consulted that, as these birds had not been feeding within the aerodrome boundary and the species was not usually locally evident, they had probably arrived in search of food because of a drought which was known to be prevailing in their normally resident area.

It was found that after immediately after the bird encounter, the left hand engine vibration indication had risen to 4.5 units and been accompanied by a change in the sound of the engine and a slight vibration through the airframe. However, the corresponding EGT value for this engine had not changed from the pre-strike value and there had been no changes to any of the engine indications for the right hand engine.