Boeing 747 Bird-Strike

Bird striking Boeing 747 engine during takeoff roll

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Royal Flight of Oman Boeing 747-400 left Hamburg on 22 November 2020 at around 10:30am local time (9:30 UTC). During takeoff roll the aircraft was struck by a bird, however the aircraft continued to climb without further incidents and landed safely in Oman a few hours later.
The gull hit the engine inlet and part of the bird went through the fan and then through the bypass we belive. Looks like nothing went through the core and compressor stage.

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©Aileron Aviation Films 2020
This video is property of Aileron Aviation Films and may not be used in any way without our written permission.

[AileronAviationFilms]

To clear up a bit what you see (and hear) in this video:

This is a Boeing 747-400 operated by the Royal Flight of Oman, this is a governmental aircraft and not a regular passenger aircraft.

The aircraft hit a bird during takeoff roll at around 100kts (115 mph/185 km/h). The reason why the aircraft looks so slow in the video is because this is filmed on a focal length of 1360mm which squeezes the depth of a video by a significant amount.
The bird hit the engine cowling (the silver ring) and seperated into pieces there. Some parts went through the engine, visible by the black cloud behind the engine. This is no smoke, just shredded bird as the bird went through the bypass part of the engine, this is a part of the engine where no combustion takes place. The big fan in front of the engine sucks in a lot of air and the major part of it goes around the core directly to the engine exhaust. Only if the bird goes through that core you will be able to see fire and smoke coming out of the engine. That was not the case here.

Birdstrikes are happening on a quite regular basis (there are 13, 000 per year in the US alone) and aircraft engines are designed to withstand birds weighing up to 3.6kg (8 lb) which is tested with frozen dead birds that are shot into the engine during the certification process. In this event is it quite likely that the pilots did not even noticed the birdstrike during the takeoff roll and therefore continued with the takeoff roll as normal.
They will probably not realise that they hit a bird until they do the outside check after landing. Therefore, if the engine parameters don't change drastically in the cockpit no takeoff abort or return to the airport is needed.

Some may ask: Why don't they put a mesh in front of the engine to protect it?
It's simple: There is no need for that as this would not help in any way or may even worsen the situation. The impct speed of 100kts is killing the bird instantly regardless of hitting the engine cowling or a mesh made out of metal. In the worst case the mesh will burst and the metallic parts will cause serious damage to the fan blades and core of the engine. Furthermore the mesh will worsen the airflow into the engine, resulting in a higher fuel consumption.

Coming to the SOUND of the video:
The video is shot on a tripod standing on a gravel path around the airport, the sound is recorded with a video shotgun microphone that mainly collects sound in front of the microphone and some of the sound behind it. The strange sound you hear (a person walking on a wet gravel path as it rained just before the takeoff) is so loud because the aircraft engines spool up around 3 kilometers away and the sound is relatively quiet when it hits the microphone. On the other hand, a person jogging and walking behind the camera is just about 5 meters away, making that sound much louder.

[prashantkhatri]

No suffering. The bird died in 0.0001 sec
That's how death should come to everyone

[magnumlore]

Bird: *dies
the guy in the background: *minecraft stepping grass noises

[auwz]

Can we just appreciate for a second how clean that 747 is!!

[Cheeto_Fingerz]

Can we take a minute to talk about the fact that these engines are designed and engineered well enough to withstand something like this without exploding or breaking down?

[haha_dont_care_.]

The birds in heaven:
Bird 1: how did you die?
Bird 2: oh well, i starved in the forest... you?
Bird 1: i got sucked into a plane engine
Bird 2: ....

[ivnkr_]

Props to the guy who recorded this amazing footage. Professional work right there! 👏

[gauravkalra]

Who's more interested in how magnificently the plane took off instead of the bird strike?

[samb]

RIP bird April 15 2019-22 November 2020. Our prayers are with you.😢🙏🙏🙏🙏 (cue the sad music)

[yelruta]

Plot twist, the bird was a Boeing whistleblower

[NOTDeezy.]

Flight engine: *exists*
Birds: "Oy that looks nice and cozy"

[victorrrrm]

Momma bird: Look both ways before crossing the runway.

[YawnGod]

It doesn't look like it was entirely sucked into the engine, rather it hit the side rim of the engine and blew up all around.

[TJChagas]

Wow what a smooth video recording!!! Congratulations for that footage. What a beautiful view!

[boysplanet]

Mother bird: son, don't get close to that big bird. He can kill you
Bird: why, he doesn't have a beak.
So he won't eat me
a few moments later:

[speedbird-]

Amazing recording skills, amazing camera equipment, amazing rare aircraft with bird strike. I'm not surprised that this video has over 3M views

[PC-nqce]

The bird took a good flight. Straight to bird heaven.

[eyetrapper]

Now that was a stunning catch. A rare 747 combined with a bird strike.

[BGTech]

At least the bird went through the engines bypass, not the core.

[dsn]

Man the quality of this video is amazing.