One late summer afternoon I was preflighting a Cessna 172 and checking for bird nests before a sunset flight with my 11-year-old daughter, Megan. I'd opened both doors to cool the cabin as we did our walk-around, and then a pilot friend called to us. We stepped away from the Cessna, talked about the good flying weather, he joshed Megan about flying with her old man, and we parted with him wishing us a good time.
We completed the preflight, took off, and flew over a glass-like James River. It was one of those hot, still evenings, with some haze that's so common in Tidewater Virginia. Without air conditioning it would be an uncomfortable night on the ground, but it was a pleasant night to fly. We started with a little navigation work and tried to find a landmark from the chart. Megan made a few turns, with Dad helping on the rudders, and then we flew up the York River as she tried to hold a course with my hands resting gently on the yoke, "helping her, just a little".
At West Point Airport I made a few landings, the first being a real thud and bump. The others were a lot softer and redeemed me in my daughter's eyes (and in my own). We'd chatted and laughed and looked down at those poor unfortunate groundlings who weren't sharing our joy. As the sun edged the horizon, we turned back for the James River, Williamsburg-Jamestown Airport, and home.
My landing at Williamsburg was the best of the evening, a perfect ending to a near-perfect flight. As I taxied off the runway and retracted the flaps a sudden commotion from the back seat intruded into my headset. "Dad, there's a bird in here!" Megan shouted into the intercom. I held the brakes, looked over my shoulder, and saw a mass of feathers flapping and scratching like a frenzied feather duster trying to clean a hole through the back window.
"How did it get in here?" Megan shouted again, echoing my own thoughts.
The agitated bird was getting closer as it moved to the side window behind my head. "Okay, just hold on sweetheart," I said trying to keep her calm. I was trying to keep myself calm too, since my hands were still full of Cessna.
"Let Megan out of the plane?" I thought.
"No, there's a big spinning prop out there. Keep her where she is," I concluded.
We cleared the taxiway turnoff, and taxied to the airplane's parking spot, which wasn't too far away. As the bird continued its assault on the left rear-seat window, I went through the engine shutdown procedure as quickly and as calmly as I could. When the prop stopped I told Megan to get out. When she was clear of the Cessna, I took the keys and got out as the bird - a starling, I noticed - continued to beat itself around the rear of the cabin.
Opening the baggage door finally gave the bird the escape route it wanted, and it flew away at its best possible speed.
"How did it get in there, Dad?" Megan repeated. " Do you think it was hurt?"
"I don't know," I said, looking in the back seat, then checking the rear bulkhead.
It was snug and in place. The bird hadn't come from the tail cone.
Then a thousand thoughts rushed through my mind about the pandemonium a bird bashing around the cockpit of an airplane in flight could have caused. What if the bird had started ramming against my door during flight or while we were landing? Could I have maintained control? Where was the bird and why did it act up only after my fourth and last landing of the flight? Why didn't that first hard landing stir it up?
I looked at my daughter grinning up at me and realized just how lucky we had been.
As I coiled the headset cables and tied down the airplane, I tried to keep my thoughts from showing. I joked with Megan, and she laughed about our "stowaway starling" as we drove home.
Talking with other pilots later, all we could surmise was that the bird had flown unnoticed through the open doors during our preflight conversation with our friend. Perhaps the bird stunned itself by striking the inside of the cabin wall when it flew in and only came to after my last touchdown.
Meagan and I still joke about the stowaway starling, but the bird taught me a lesson. During my preflight inspections I still check for birds and nests in all the usual places such as the cowling and tail cone. But now I check inside the cabin, too. No more stowaways for me. I still enjoy watching birds in flight, but I insist they do their flying on their own!
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