Racing pigeons force emergency landing

A BOEING 737 jet was forced to make an emergency landing on one engine at Dublin Airport after one of its engines was struck by a flock of racing pigeons.

The incident, on April 19, 2003, caused serious damage to one of the aircraft’s two engines.

Several racing pigeons were sucked into the engine of the Boeing 737 aircraft just as it was lifting off.

No injuries were reported among the 103 passengers and five crew on board the scheduled Ryanair flight from Dublin to Bristol.

A similar incident in 2003 forced an executive jet to crash near Linate Airport in Milan, killing all on board.

The two Ryanair pilots told investigators they heard thuds from the engine during take-off which sounded to them like a bird strike.

The flight crew made a distress call and the aircraft landed safely on one engine around 14 minutes after take-off.

Aer Rianta later recovered bird carcasses which were found to be some of 21,000 racing pigeons released that day in a race from Arklow, Co Wicklow.

As a result of the incident, pigeon racing groups agreed they would no longer release birds on the east coast.