Hacker News Reader

Comment by fromthestart | Hacker News Reader

Nonsense. At 300-500mph, hardness doesn't really matter, mass is the killer. There's no reason to suspect from the damage alone that it was a drone.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=jet+bird+strike&t=brave&iar=images...

View on HN

The plane was on landing approach, during which it isn't traveling 300-500mph.

Also, notice how in every single one of the pictures in your link there are blood streaks. This is pretty much universal in a bird strike, as a strike hard enough to damage aircraft skin is also hard enough to severely injure any bird, leaving at least some feathers behind. The photo in the OP doesn't have either blood or feathers. That doesn't totally rule out a bird strike, but it does make it less likely.

For anyone else. The landing speed of a 747 is around 166mph-172mph [1].

[1] http://lmgtfy.com/?q=747+landing+speed

Approach speed is anywhere between landing speed and cruising speed. They don't slow to 170mph before descending or entering a landing approach, for example.

They have to be at or below 250 knots below 10,000 ft unless they're in a special control zone.

Here's a bird strike with no blood or feathers: https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2016/04/28/Bird-strike-leave...

High or moderate speed would even blow the blood, like spraying windshield fluid on car at 70 MPH

If they flew through rain it might wash the blood away.

Feathers may not be seen on damaged surfaces, relative wind speed on nose(after hit) would mostly blow the feathers away from surface, however feather may be found deep inside of broken places where wind could not take feathers on escape.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com