Blame Canada! Labrador Geese Guilty of US Air Crash

In a strange turn of events, Canadian geese have been pinpointed as the cause of US Airways' Flight 1549 crash into the Hudson River on January 15, 2009. According to reports, a flock of birds collided with the airbus shortly after take off.

An investigation into the crash has been underway for months. Leading the charge are researchers from the Smithsonian Institution, who sent samples of bird feathers found on the plane to the Feather Identification Laboratory at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. (Source: latimes.com)

Planes Present Real Threat to Bird Populations

Surprisingly, this is actual common practice: the Smithsonian is often tasked with identifying the role birds play in airplane collisions. In fact, over seven thousand cases of bird strikes are forwarded to the FAA, or Federal Aviation Administration, every year.

It's believed that only 1 in 5 cases of bird collisions are ever reported, meaning that as many as 35,000 birds or flocks of birds are struck by American planes every 365 days.

As for the January US Airways Flight, researchers found that the Canada geese (which were struck at a height of about 2,900 feet) significantly weakened the plane's engines. Both were seriously damaged by the flock, but luckily Captain Chesley B. Sullenberger III was able to heroically land his plane in the river without any loss of life.

Only minor injuries were reported amongst the 155 people on board that day. (Source: miamiherald.com)

CSI Smithsonian

From the feathers alone, Smithsonian scientists were able to estimate that the birds weighed approximately eight pounds.

What's most remarkable about the find is the way researchers were able to pinpoint the birds as Canadian geese. They went as far as examining the ratios of hydrogen and deuterium in the feathers; the higher the ratio, the further north the birds' breeding ground. These birds, they found, were specifically from Labrador, near Newfoundland.

So, blame Canada! Well, at least their "hoser" geese.