Chattanooga Metropolitan Airport has registered the biggest increase in wildlife strikes among airports nationally, according to new Federal Aviation Administration data released today.
The airport went from four reported incidents in 2000 to 55 in 2008, the FAA information showed.
The FAA made good on its promise to release for the first time, records of where and when airplanes have struck birds over the last 19 years.
The disclosures come thanks largely to pressure after the dramatic ditching of a US Airways jet in the Hudson River after bird strikes knocked out both its engines in January.
The FAA published the data on the Internet. It lists details for more than 89,000 incidents since 1990, including 28 cases since 2000 when a collision with a bird or other animal such as a deer on a runway was so severe that the aircraft was considered destroyed.
The data shows that since 2000, John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York reported at least 30 accidents where damage was either substantial or the plane was actually destroyed. Sacramento International Airport in California reported at least 28 such accidents.
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