Thu. Jan. 15 2009 10:27 PM ET

Joan Lowy, The Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- Airplanes chew up birds all the time but sometimes the birds win.

That may be what happened Thursday in New York when a US Airways Airbus 320 made a crash landing in water only three minutes after taking off from LaGuardia International Airport.

Flight 1549's pilot reported a "double bird strike" to air traffic controllers moments after taking off, and said he had lost thrust in both engines.

Alex Caldwell, a spokeswoman for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, says technically, that means the plane had struck -- or been struck by -- two birds.

But Air Line Pilots Association safety committee chairman Rory Kay says the pilot's message could easily have meant that the jetliner had ingested birds in both engines or that it had been struck by more than just two birds.

"It's not easy to count birds," Kay notes wryly, when you're taking off or landing and typical speeds can exceed 160 kilometres per hour.

Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Diane Spitaliere said, "Bird strikes do happen from time to time."

She said there haven't been many major accidents due to birds strikes, "not in many years -- not like this one. ... It's more common in general aviation -- smaller aircraft."

According to the Bird Strike Committee, established in the U.S. government and the airline industry, over 195 people have been killed worldwode and property damage incurred exceeding $600 million to U.S. aircraft, as a result of bird and other wildlife strikes since 1988.

The Committee points specifically to the increasing populations of Canada geese and double-crested cormorants, as a source of increasing worry.

There is a large populatioin of both bird species in the Toronto harbour, as well as thousasnds of ring-billed gulls.

An analysis of bird-plane incidents discloses that Porter Airline aircraft have been involved in numberous bird strikes in 2007 - two in Halifax, one in each of Montreal and Ottawa, and a disproportionate 17 at the Toronto Island Airport.

For 2008, the number of bird strikes at the Toronto Island Airport increased to 21.  The airport is on the waterfront, adjacent to a bird sanctuary.

Figures from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration show 64,734 bird strikes to civil aircraft in the United States from 1990 to 2005 -- about one strike for every 10,000 flights.

The administration requires pilots to report bird strikes, Spitaliere said.

But Kay called birds "a definite Achilles heel" for aviation.

A commercial airliner like the US Airways plane is most likely to encounter birds on takeoffs and landings because that's when the plane is flying at lower altitudes, Kay said.

Most of the time airliners are flying at 6,000 metres to 9,000 metres where birds are few in number.

But below 1,500 metres is where planes run into trouble, Kay said.

"There is no shortage of bird strike reports ... You just don't get to hear about them," said Kay, a Boeing 767 pilot who has been flying for 34 years.