Canada Goose

You know things are serious when US Airways Capt. Chesley (Sully) Sullenberger weighs in and when mayoral spokesman, Marc La Vorgna uses the phrase “bird strike epidemic.”

Birds at LaGuardia Airport could save neighbors from the stinky smell of trash if community groups and civic leaders have their way. According to the Daily News, opponents of the North Shore Marine Transfer Station in College Point, say the trash will attract birds — which could prove hazardous for planes flying in and out of nearby LaGuardia.

US Airways Capt. Chesley (Sully) Sullenberger, who made an emergency landing on the Hudson River in 2009 after a bird strike, has also come out against the trash transfer station.

The Mayor’s Office dismissed the concerns, noting a waste station operated safely at the same site from 1954 until 2001.

“Was there a bird strike epidemic then? No,” mayoral spokesman Marc La Vorgna said in a statement. “And the new station will be even safer: a fully enclosed, state-of-the-art facility.”

The issue came to fore again when a Delta Air Lines flight to Los Angeles made an emergency landing on April 19 at Kennedy Airport after birds were sucked into the plane’s engine. Five days later, a JetBlue flight returned to the Westchester County Airport after two geese hit the aircraft’s windshield.

Planes carrying Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Vice President Joe Biden were both struck by birds on April 19. No one was hurt.

Image Source: Wikimedia Commons, by Alan D. Wilson


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