The Canadian military is investigating after a “possible bird strike” landed a CF-18 demonstration plane during an air show on Wednesday.
The pilot remained unharmed in the incident of the Wild Wednesday air show in Ypsilanti, Michigan, outside Detroit.
Major Trevor Reed, a spokesman for the 1st Canadian Airborne Division, said the flight was “interrupted due to a possible bird strike”, but said investigators were still inspecting the plane to find out what had happened.
“The pilot experienced something that, according to his safety list, led him to return to the airport in accordance with his standard operating procedures,” Reed said, confirming that the problem occurred with at least one of the aircraft’s engines.
“I will not speculate on what exactly the pilot went through. All this is part of the inspection part of the investigation at the moment,” he added.
“We have a very professional team of technicians who know the CF-18 very well and we are confident that they will be able to diagnose the fault.”
The demonstration team is scheduled to present itself at the Borden Canadian Forces base in Ontario on June 18 and 19.
The spokesman said it was “too early to say” whether these performances would be canceled or rescheduled due to the plane problem.
“There is a second jet that the CF-18 Demo Team has in case of technical problems with the main aircraft,” he added.
A statement from the team’s Twitter account lamented that he had to cut back on his performance in Michigan, but noted that “safety is our first priority”.
The incident came just over two years after a bird strike was blamed for the fatal Snowbird plane crash near Kamloops, British Columbia.
Public relations officer Captain Jen Casey was killed on May 17, 2020, after a small bird was sucked into the engine of her CT-114 Tutor aircraft shortly after takeoff.
The CF-18 Demonstration Team Shows Canada’s CF-18 Hornet Twin-Engine Fighters During Pilots and Springs in Canada and the United States
His team members are divided between 3 Wing Bagotville in Quebec and 4 Wing Cold Lake in Alberta.
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