VIDEO: SeaTac Airport installs new avian radar system

Birds near airports are a serious safety issue and SeaTac Airport has a new approach to handling them. In partnership with University of Illinois researchers and the FAA, SeaTac is the first airport in the nation to use a new advanced bird tracking system that permits real time displays of bird activity in approximately a 2 mile radius around the airport.

The system uses three radar dishes, each assigned to a set of altitudes, two atop the Airport office building and one mobile unit. Steve Osmek is in charge of wildlife abatement at SeaTac and he can monitor the system with a laptop computer.

If birds are found to be too close they use pyrotechnics from a gun.

Osmek is also charged with keeping coyotes off the runway and they've installed a fence that is buried 12 feet deep and at an angle to discourage burrowing under it.

Coyote burrows can be up to 30 feet long and they have been known to dig under other fences as deep as ten feet.

The avian radar system is primarily monitored from a new system in the office building day and night.

In January of 2009, Flight 1549 from New York that landed in the Hudson River suffered a bird strike shortly after takeoff. While the new system at SeaTac would not have been able to deal with a similar situation due to the circumstances of that incident, bird strikes are not uncommon. In 2008 there were 105 near SeaTac and more than 7,000 across the nation are reported annually. Osmek notes that these are just those being reported.

"More people have died from starlings than any other birds out there. It's that concentration of living material in the air and something that when the plane hits it it can cause substantial damage especially if those birds are ingested into an engine," Osmek said.