Those flocking geese!
Terrified passengers aboard a geese-stricken jumbo jet out of Newark found themselves circling New Jersey for almost 90 white-knuckle minutes as the pilot dumped fuel from what they feared was a crippled plane, sources said yesterday.
Hong Kong-bound Continental Flight 99, a twin-engine Boeing 777 with 301 aboard, was 300 feet up at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday when it smacked into a gaggle of about 10 Canada geese, aviation sources told The Post.
The pilot told controllers the geese hit the left wing of the craft, which was fully loaded with fuel for the 16-hour flight.
“He said the whole left side of the aircraft was banged up, the wing got hit, and possibly an engine,” said Ray Adams, a Newark air-traffic controller on duty at the time of the incident.
“They weren’t sure what was going on with it.”
Post reporter Brendan Scott was among the passengers coping with a “near-death” experience as the jet circled over the New Jersey Turnpike.
The Boeing circled at least four times around Exit 8 near Old Bridge and Hightstown during the fuel dump — leaving passengers with little to do but pray for their safety while the pilots went about their preparations.
“It was a whole flocking family of geese,” Scott said.
“Members of the flight crew, who insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about the incident, said they had seen a single-goose strike before. Never a flock,” the Post reporter said.
Pilots commonly dump fuel to lighten their planes’ weight before emergency landings. Aviators say the fuel mists and evaporates before reaching the ground.
Airport rescue trucks were at the ready when the jet finally turned back to Newark. It landed safely shortly after 8 p.m. and taxied to a gate.
Mechanics later found that the jet’s left engine had ingested several birds, said Continental spokeswoman Julie King.
The giant GE engine was not damaged, and the jet was back in the air yesterday, King said.
The passengers took off for Hong Kong aboard another Continental jet yesterday morning.
Officially, the airline and the Federal Aviation Administration declined to confirm that the jet had been hit by geese — a determination usually made after laboratory tests of the birds’ remains.
Canada geese are blamed for the January 2009 “Miracle on the Hudson” ditching of Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger’s US Airways jet in the Hudson River.
Meanwhile, a US Airways jet headed to Charlotte, NC, yesterday with 124 passengers and a crew of five struck several geese leaving upstate Rochester. The plane turned back, and no one was hurt.