Pilots praised for poised handling of bird strike emergency

The three pilots who successfully landed a commercial passenger airliner after a bird strike to one of its engines during takeoff were awarded for their heroism on Wednesday.

Captain Yang Zilong and co-pilots Cao Liang and Huang Weimian from Air Changan showed solid professionalism and strong nerve in successfully handling the incident, the Civil Aviation Administration of China's Northwest Regional Administration said during the award ceremony.

The incident occurred on Aug 26 during the takeoff of flight 9H8409, which was carrying 173 passengers and 10 crew from Wuzhou, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, to Sanya, Hainan province.

At 10:31 am, as the plane was accelerating and just about to leave the ground, Yang, 34, saw a large bird approaching the runway, and a bang followed.

"After just one or two seconds we knew the bird had hit the plane," recounted Yang. "All of a sudden all sorts of monitoring devices, such as for the speed, height and angle of attack, were giving warnings. The left control lever was shaking and the right lever was hardly responsive."

It was later discovered that a 1.3-meter black kite, a raptor, had hit the plane's left angle of attack indicator. The indicator broke loose, got sucked into the left engine and damaged it.

Due to the damage, the monitors in front of Yang no longer functioned normally, but at that critical juncture, based on the training he received, Yang made the decision to take the plane to a height of 1,500 meters and then try to land.

Following a checklist, co-pilot Huang noticed that the monitors in front of Cao, who was sitting on the right-side seat as a co-pilot, were still functional, and Liu decided to let Cao handle the landing.

Cao, who had taught at a pilots' school, managed to land the aircraft 28 minutes later, despite the fact that the lever was much harder to manipulate than normal.

"My arms were numb when the plane landed," said Cao. "But walking out of the cockpit and looking at the passengers, I knew what I had to do and what my responsibility was as a pilot."

In a circular, the CAAC commended the team for their acts on Oct 23. On Wednesday, the CAAC Northwest Regional Administration awarded Yang as an "exceptional captain", and Huang and Cao as "exceptional pilots". The administration praised their skills as well as their composure during the emergency.

After listening to the cockpit recording, many netizens praised the pilots' poised discussion with air traffic control during the life-or-death emergency.

"It sounded like they were not nervous at all, but the huge sigh of relief after landing gave it away as to how much pressure they were under," said one netizen.