When I was in the Air Force flying in B-52s, bird strikes were a big concern. If you were to fly into a flock of birds on take off, and you lost a couple engines, you could be in serious trouble. But I didn’t realize that birdstrikes are just the tip of the iceberg. As the FAA document of wildlife strikes to United States civil aircraft for 1990-2004 (PDF format) shows that birds aren’t the only problem.

Watch out when it is “raining cats and dogs”. In that 14 year period, there were 21 domestic dog (page 51) and 8 house cat (page 52) strikes. But those numbers pale in comparison to the 174 strikes of those wily coyotes (page 52). Coyote strikes make more sense if you consider that maybe they were unsuccessfully chasing that pesky bird, the roadrunner.

You probably would guess that it is very unlikely that an airplane would hit a ground burrowing badger or a river otter, and you would be right. There were only two badgers and one river otter strike in those 14 years (page 52). But where did those 12 alligator strikes (page 53) come from? Were they flying extremely low level over the everglades?

Who knew how dangerous those skies were?