An airplane experiencing a bird strike isn’t an entirely uncommon phenomenon — but it’s much less common that the bird itself continues on for the rest of the trip.
American Airlines Flight 1498 from Mexico City to Miami earned this rare distinction on Tuesday, after a bird became embedded in the radome, or the nose cone that protects the plane’s radar system, upon striking the aircraft during the plane’s descent into Miami International Airport.
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In photos of the incident, the bird can still be seen hanging lifeless from the front of the aircraft, directly next to a large dent.
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A representative for the airline has since confirmed that no one on the flight was injured (aside from the bird), and that the plane landed as scheduled.
“The flight landed safely and taxied to the gate,” explained America in a statement to Fox News. “The aircraft was taken out of service, and our maintenance team repaired the radome.
“The aircraft was repaired, and returned to scheduled service yesterday evening,” the airline added.
According to the Miami Herald, bird strikes happen quite frequently, with more than 160,000 instances being reported between 1990 and 2015.
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Most recently, Delta recently blamed a bird strike for causing a huge dent in one of its aircraft on Oct. 28, after a plane carrying the Oklahoma Thunder NBA team encountered an unexpected object in mid-air. And less than a week earlier, a JetBlue flight out of Boston was diverted to New York after reportedly experiencing a bird strike only moments after leaving for Las Vegas.
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