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Making the airfield safe for the "big birds"

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Richard Williams
  • 455th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs
BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan --  Foreign objects can be an aircraft's worst enemy. As pilots taxi them down runways around the world, the air intake of an F-16 fighter jet or the rotary propeller of an MC-12W can sustain serious damage when they come into contact with items that do not belong on the airfield.

One of the main concerns at any airfield is the potential for wildlife to damage the mission essential aircraft or place air crews in harm's way, said Todd Grimm, a wildlife biologist from Boise, Idaho, with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

"The main thing I am doing here is identifying any potential wildlife hazards that may impact the aircraft," said Mr. Grimm, deployed to the 455th Air Expeditionary Wing Safety Office.

Mr. Grimm, along with four local Afghan trappers, set snare traps, and use other lethal and nonlethal means to ensure birds remain out of the path of inbound or outbound aircraft. They also attempt to remove animals considered prey for local predators such as jackals and wild dogs to keep them away from the airfield and the base populace.

To keep the airfield wildlife free, the team removes any vegetation that could harbor insects or seeds that birds may feed on, said Mr. Grimm. "We have also removed jack rabbits and red fox which keep larger predatory animals from the airfield."

Mr. Grimm, who has more than 18 years experience in aircraft bird strike avoidance and wildlife removal from airfields, says although the 455th AEW has reduced bird strikes dramatically in the past year. Their goal is clear : no bird strikes are acceptable.

"So far we have made a tremendous difference in the number of bird strikes in the area," he said. Mr. Grimm has compared bird strike incidents from April and May 2009, with statistics from the same time in 2010, and wildlife incidents have dropped by 50 percent.

"When I first got here, we had a problem with black kites at the end of the runway. There were more than 2,000 birds in the area that would fly to the opposite end of the airfield at dusk every day," said Mr. Grimm. His team was able to remove the birds from the area and remove the potential risk.

"We want to catch the birds," said Mohammad Ashraf, an Afghan trapper who works with the safety office. "We want to keep them back from the airfield and keep the airplanes safe."