PHOTOS: Bird Strike Severely Damages Boeing 737-800 Attempting to Land

A Boeing 737-800 sustained severe damage from a recent bird strike, with photos of the caved-in nose going viral.

The viral images of Turkish Airlines’ Boeing 737-800 with a caved-in nose is no hoax, and the airline is standing behind its story of how what caused the damage. According to Mashable, citing a tweet by Flight-Report and an airline representative, the aircraft was damaged by a bird strike during approach at Nevşehir Kapadokya Airport (NAV) last week.

While attempting to land, Turkish Airlines Flight 2004 reportedly crashed into a bird with its radome — the technical name for an aircraft’s nose cone. The pilot maintained control of the aircraft and notified air traffic control of the situation. Air traffic controllers promptly delayed two additional flights from landing at NAV, hoping to prevent further bird strikes. TK2004 landed successfully, and no injuries were reported among the 125 passengers onboard.

Even though the damage looks quite extreme, Turkish Airlines representatives maintain that the large dent is consistent with a bird strike. According to Ali Genc, Turkish Airlines senior vice president of media relations, “The radome area of a plane is constructed by soft materials … to minimalize the impact of such hits. Therefore, such standard/normal deformation occurs as a natural result of such incidents.”

The 737-800 was vacated before being towed to a hangar at NAV for maintenance. The airline has not announced when the aircraft will be back in service. Genc stressed that the situation is a normal part of airline operations and described bird strikes as a “common incident on civil aeronautical operations,” stressing in an emailed statement: “Any other area of the aircraft than the engine area, such as radome, wings, hull, do not pose a risk when hit by a bird.”

[Photos: Flight-Report via Twitter]