Can tall grass keep birds away from planes?

When birds and planes collide, the results can be deadly. That’s why airports around the world work hard to keep birds away, even resorting to shooting or poisoning large flocks. One Ohio airport is now experimenting with a new, gentler way to avoid bird strikes: planting tall prairie grass.

Heavy birds like geese—which cause the most damage to planes—are believed to avoid long grass because it offers good cover for predators. So officials at Dayton International Airport are converting up to 300 acres of the airfield’s 2,200 non-aeronautical land into prairie grass plains. By the end of this year, they hope to plant the tall grass under the airport’s takeoff and landing paths.

Of the more than 10,000 bird strikes a year in the United States, the most frequent problem is engine damage—at an estimated cost of $950 million a year. And some of that damage is catastrophic. The forced landing of US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River in 2009—often called The Miracle on the Hudson—occurred after Canadian geese took out both engines, causing the plane to lose power. Nobody died when the plane glided into the river.

The passengers of Eastern Air Lines Flight 375 in 1960 weren’t so lucky. The plane struck a flock of European starlings during takeoff. All four engines were damaged and the aircraft crashed in Boston harbor, killing 62 people.

Globally, wildlife strikes have killed more than 250 people and destroyed more than 229 aircraft since 1988, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. During the past 23 years, 25 fatalities and 279 injuries have been linked to wildlife strikes in the United States.

Airports often buy large parcels of adjacent land to create a buffer zone and limit the number of local residents affected by loud jet engines. Newer airports tend to be built next to tracts of empty land. But those large fields also make great rest stops for migrating birds.

“We operate airports in a smaller and smaller environment,” said Terrence G. Slaybaugh, director of Dayton’s airport. “If we are going to protect the long-term use of airports in an increasingly populated area, we need to be less intrusive and find ways to contribute in a positive way to our surroundings.”

The thick grass has other benefits: preventing water runoff, taking carbon dioxide out of the air, and requiring only one mowing every three years.

Dayton airport has had a policy for at least 14 years of not killing birds. But it does try to scare them away with loud noises from non-lethal pyrotechnics and recordings of geese in distress. Maybe with this new grass, even that harassment won’t be necessary anymore. The industry has been looking for a solution for a long time. After all, the FAA notes that the first reported bird strike was by Orville Wright, in 1905.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.