Officials Say Plane Suffered 'Multiple Bird Strikes'

An encounter with a large flock of birds while on approach to Rome Ciampino Airport resulted in a rough emergency landing for a Ryanair jet Monday morning.

The Associated Press reports the Boeing 737-800 took off in Frankfurt as Flight FR4102 with 166 passengers and six crew onboard. It was descending to land at the Italian airport when it "suffered multiple bird strikes," according to Ryanair spokesman Stephen McNamara.

The birds were ingested into at least one of the airliner's two turbofan engines, necessitating an emergency landing.

Ciampino Airport fire official Marco Ghimenti told Italy's Sky 24 the airliner's left maingear gave way when the plane landed near the far end of the airport's lone runway. It's not yet known whether the bird strike was causal to the landing gear failure, or if that was from the rough landing.

The accident closed Ciampino through Monday, as crews worked to remove the stricken narrowbody from the runway. Photos from the scene show the plane completely intact, but resting heavy on its left engine nacelle.

Alessandro Montemaggiori, an expert from the Italian Bird Strike Committee, told Agence-France Presse he believes European starlings were to blame. Though each small bird weighs only about three ounces, they travel in flocks as large as 10,000 birds "and act as a single thing," said Montemaggiori.

As many 10 persons onboard the airliner were taken to local hospitals with unspecified injuries, but all have since bene released according to The Belfast Telegraph.

FMI: www.ryanair.com, www.enac-italia.it/enac_english.htm