Canadian CF-18 Demo Pilot Saves The Aircraft After A Deadly Bird Strike

On the 8th of June at the Wild Wednesday Airshow at Willow Run Airport in Ypsilanti, Michigan, the CF-18 demonstration team was performing the mid-week evening show when their fighter aircraft suffered a bird strike. This caused a loud explosion to be heard across the airport and one of the engines to fail. The Canadian Air Force demonstration team handled this emergency in the best way possible and landed the aircraft successfully.

When the incident happened, the aircraft was near the upper portion of the aerobatic box, the airspace used for flight demos at air shows. The crowd saw a very bright explosion from the CF-18’s right, starboard engine.

After the explosion Capt. Haggart-Smith immediately leveled the aircraft and began his emergency checklist to recover the aircraft from the engine failure. After he ran the checklist, he circled over the demonstration field to land the aircraft away from the crowd. Once the emergency procedures are done, the pilot could do a controlled landing without causing any issues.

As we mentioned in an earlier article, bird strikes can be deadly even for big multi-engine aircraft. The Canadian CF-18 pilot could overcome a brutal accident with his experience. Incidents like this show the professionalism of the awesome military fighter pilots such as Capt. Jesse Haggart-Smith.