A bird strike—sometimes called birdstrike, bird ingestion (for an engine), bird hit, or BASH (for Bird Aircraft Strike Hazard)—is a collision between an airborne animal (usually a bird or bat) and a human-made vehicle, especially aircraft. The term is also used for bird deaths resulting from collisions with human-made structures such as power lines, towers and wind turbines (see Bird-skyscraper collisions and Towerkill). Bird strikes are a significant threat to flight safety, and have caused a number of accidents with human casualties. The number of major accidents involving civil aircraft is quite low and it has been estimated that there is only about 1 accident resulting in human death in one billion (109) flying hours. The majority of bird strikes (65%) cause little damage to the aircraft; however the collision is usually fatal to the bird(s) involved. Most accidents occur when there is a collision involving a bird (or birds) and the windscreen or a bird (or birds) is sucked into the engines of mechanical aircraft. These cause annual damages that have been estimated at $400 million within the United States of America alone and up to $1.2 billion to commercial aircraft worldwide. In addition to property damage, collisions between man-made structures and conveyances and birds is a contributing factor, among many others, to the worldwide decline of many avian species. the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) reported 65,139 bird strikes for 2011-14, and the Federal Aviation Authority counted 177,269 wildlife strike reports on civil aircraft between 1990 and 2015, growing 38 % in 7 years from 2015 to 2009. Birds accounted for 97%. Related to this is a bug strike: an impairment of an aircraft/groundcraft or aviator/driver by an airborne insect.

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