A Southwest plane coming from Tampa landed safely at Bradley Airport after what appeared to have been multiple bird strikes on Wednesday afternoon.
Flight 2102, a Boeing 737, left Tampa, Florida at 11:30 p.m. and landed on time at Bradley at 2:15 p.m., according to the airline’s Web site.
According to the air traffic communication, 130 people were onboard and the plane was at 18,000 feet when there was a loud bang off the right side of the plane.
While in the air, the pilots heard a loud bang, but were not sure exactly what happened. They declared an emergency and contacted the tower at Bradley Airport.
"We're too high to have actually, I believe, hit a bird of any type," the pilot or co-pilot said at one point.
Officials from Southwest Airlines said the strike appears to have involved multiple birds and "this kind of thing is not uncommon."
According to the Federal Aviation Administration Wildlife Strike Database, there have been 48 reports of bird strikes in the state in 2012, including 23 at Bradley. Several are listed as causing no damage, which indicates that the amount of damage was less than $50,000, while there are no notations on others.
The plane, which was carrying 125 passengers and five crew members, has been taken out of service. How long it will remain out of service is not known.
How much damage the plane sustained is not yet known, but air traffic recordings state that the plane suffered nose damage and that the nose cone and radar cone were peeled back a bit.