2 Kennedy Airport bird strike reports under FAA investigation

The Federal Aviation Administration said Thursday it is investigating two reports of airplanes at Kennedy Airport striking birds.

There were no reports of injuries, the agency said.

JetBlue Flight 1248, an Airbus A320 coming from Los Angeles, reported upon arrival about 8:30 a.m. Wednesday that it had experienced a bird strike, the FAA said.

A biologist from the Port Authority examined the plane and could find no evidence of a bird strike, agency spokeswoman Cheryl Ann Albiez said.

The crew of Singapore Airlines Flight 26, an Airbus A388 from Germany, reported upon its 10:28 a.m. arrival Wednesday that it had struck a number of birds as it descended, officials said.

Albiez said the biologist also examined the Singapore Airlines jet and the surrounding area and found the remains of several starlings and four cowbirds.

The FAA said it had no statistics about bird strikes this year. A report on its website from last December said there were more than 160,000 bird strikes reported by about 1,900 U.S. airports and 290 foreign airports between January 1990 through November 2015. There were about 13,700 strikes in 2014, the last year for which statistics were available.

Albiez said she did not have any data on bird strikes but none had been reported recently.

Two runway intersections were closed for a few minutes because of the reported strikes, but there was little if any impact on airport operations, Albiez said.