FAA Wildlife Strike Database

Name: FAA Wildlife Strike Database 1990–Present
Creator: ClarityStorm
License: https://www.claritystorm.com/license

Every Reported Strike Since 1990 — 341,090 Records

The FAA National Wildlife Strike Database (NWSD) — every wildlife strike reported by airlines, airports, and pilots since 1990. 341,090 records covering 952 species across 2,764 airports. Enriched with ClarityStorm-computed damage severity tiers, species risk scoring, seasonal indicators, and engine ingestion flags. From routine Canada goose strikes on final approach to rare but catastrophic engine ingestion events — the complete picture of wildlife risk in US airspace.

Sample: Public DomainPaid: Commercial LicenseCSV + ParquetAnnual Updates1990–PresentSpecies Risk TiersEngine Ingestion Flags341K Records

Why not download it from FAA directly?

The FAA wildlife strike database is locked behind a JavaScript-heavy web portal (wildlife.faa.gov) with no public bulk download API. Here's what we handled:

✓ Full Access database extracted — downloaded Public.accdb (353 MB) via browser automation; exported the STRIKE_REPORTS table to analysis-ready CSV + Parquet
✓ PII removed — reporter name and title fields redacted; FAA redacts most personal info in the public release, remaining PII fields dropped
✓ Damage labels decoded — mapped N/M/S/D codes to None / Minor / Substantial / Destroyed with ordinal severity tier (0–3)
✓ Aircraft class labels — decoded AC_CLASS codes to Airplane / Helicopter / Glider / etc.
✓ Engine type labels — decoded engine type codes to Turbofan / Turboprop / Piston / Turboshaft / etc.
✓ FAA region names — mapped 8-character region codes (ACE, AEA, AGL, etc.) to full region names
✓ Season computed — added Winter/Spring/Summer/Fall from incident month for seasonal analysis
✓ Species risk tier — scored each species by mean damage severity × log(strike count); classified as Low / Medium / High / Critical
✓ Engine ingestion flag — aggregated individual engine ingestion flags (ING_ENG1–4) into a single any_engine_ingestion boolean
✓ Cost buckets — binned inflation-adjusted repair cost into <$1K / $1K–$10K / etc. tiers for categorical analysis
✓ Migratory species flag — classified species as migratory based on common name keywords
✓ Parquet output — 42.8 MB vs 207.7 MB CSV; columnar storage for fast filtering across 341K rows

⏱ Skip the Access database extraction, code decoding, and risk tier computation. Ready for analysis in minutes.

341,090

Strike Reports

952

Wildlife Species

2,764

Airports Covered

36+

Years of Data

Damage Distribution

Of 341,090 reported strikes — most cause no aircraft damage, but substantial and destroyed-aircraft events drive the economic and safety tail risk.

None

198,447

58.2% of strikes

Minor

17,209

5.0% of strikes

Substantial

4,388

1.3% of strikes

Destroyed

0.03% of strikes

Note: ~121K records (35.5%) have no damage classification reported. Minor includes Minor (8,762) and Minor-uncertain (8,447).

Use Cases

Aviation Safety Risk Modeling

Score airports and flight corridors by species risk tier, damage rate, and strike frequency. Identify which species pose the highest risk to jet engines versus windshields. Build probabilistic risk models by aircraft type, phase of flight, and season.

Airport Wildlife Hazard Management

Identify airports with the highest strike rates and most damaging species. Analyze seasonal strike spikes driven by migration and local bird populations. Benchmark an airport's wildlife risk profile against peer airports in the same FAA region.

Insurance Underwriting & Loss Modeling

Model wildlife strike loss distributions by aircraft type, operator, and airport. Use inflation-adjusted repair cost distributions and out-of-service hour data to estimate expected annual loss exposure. Identify tails — the rare but catastrophic engine ingestion events.

Regulatory & Environmental Impact Analysis

Correlate strike rates with migratory flyways and seasonal bird movement data. Quantify the economic impact of wildlife strikes on the US aviation system. Support environmental assessments for new airport construction or runway expansion near sensitive habitats.

Engine & Airframe OEM Research

Analyze engine ingestion events (any_engine_ingestion=True) by engine type, aircraft mass, and species size. Identify which aircraft platforms have the highest ingestion-to-damage conversion rates. Support certification testing data for turbine bird ingestion standards.

AI/ML Flight Safety Applications

Train classifiers to predict damage severity from strike conditions (species size, height, phase of flight, speed). Build anomaly detection models to flag unusual strike clusters by airport or date. Develop geospatial risk heatmaps for wildlife activity near runways.

Schema

Single table — faa_wildlife_strikes — 113 fields delivered as CSV + Parquet. Fields marked computed are derived by ClarityStorm from FAA source data.

Field	Type	Description
record_id	int	FAA unique strike record identifier
incident_date	string	Date of strike (YYYY-MM-DD)
incident_year	int	Year of incident (1990–present)
incident_month	int	Month of incident (1–12)
season	string	Winter / Spring / Summer / Fall (computed from month)
time_local	string	Local time of strike (HHMM)
time_of_day	string	Day / Night / Dusk / Dawn
airport_id	string	FAA airport identifier (ICAO/IATA)
airport	string	Airport name
state	string	US state abbreviation
faa_region	string	FAA region code (ACE, AEA, AGL, ANE, etc.)
faa_region_name	string	FAA region full name (computed)
airport_latitude	float	Airport latitude (WGS 84)
airport_longitude	float	Airport longitude (WGS 84)
operator	string	Airline or operator name
aircraft	string	Aircraft make and model (e.g. B-737-300)
ac_class	string	Aircraft class code
ac_class_label	string	Aircraft class label: Airplane / Helicopter / Glider / etc. (computed)
ac_mass	int	Aircraft mass category (1–5, light to heavy)
engine_type	string	Engine type code
engine_type_label	string	Engine type: Turbofan / Turboprop / Piston / etc. (computed)
num_engines	int	Number of engines
phase_of_flight	string	Phase of flight: Approach / Takeoff Run / Landing Roll / En Route / etc.
height_agl_ft	float	Height above ground level in feet at time of strike
speed_kts	float	Aircraft speed in knots at time of strike
sky_condition	string	Sky condition: Clear / Some Cloud / Overcast / Fog
precipitation	string	Precipitation: None / Rain / Snow / Fog
species_id	string	FAA species identifier code
species	string	Wildlife common name (e.g. Canada goose, Red-tailed hawk)
wildlife_size	string	Small / Medium / Large
wildlife_size_label	string	Wildlife size full label (computed)
is_migratory_species	bool	Whether species is typically migratory (computed)
species_risk_score	float	Risk score = mean_severity × log(strike_count) (computed)
species_risk_tier	string	Low / Medium / High / Critical — based on damage rate and frequency (computed)
num_wildlife_seen	int	Number of animals seen
num_wildlife_struck	int	Number of animals actually struck
damage	string	Damage code: N=None, M=Minor, S=Substantial, D=Destroyed
damage_label	string	None / Minor / Substantial / Destroyed (computed)
damage_severity_tier	int	0=None, 1=Minor, 2=Substantial, 3=Destroyed (computed ordinal)
has_damage	bool	Whether strike caused aircraft damage (computed)
any_engine_ingestion	bool	Whether any engine ingested wildlife (computed)
indicated_damage	bool	Whether damage was indicated on the strike report
effect	string	Effect on flight: None / Engine Shutdown / Aborted Takeoff / Emergency Landing / etc.
cost_repairs_usd	float	Repair cost in current USD
cost_repairs_infl_adj_usd	float	Repair cost inflation-adjusted to current dollars
cost_bucket	string	None / <$1K / $1K–$10K / $10K–$100K / $100K–$1M / $1M+ (computed)
num_injuries	int	Number of human injuries resulting from strike
num_fatalities	int	Number of fatalities resulting from strike
pilot_warned	bool	Whether pilot was warned of wildlife before strike
remains_collected	bool	Whether wildlife remains were collected
remains_sent_to_smithsonian	bool	Whether remains were sent to Smithsonian for species ID
aircraft_out_of_service_hrs	float	Hours aircraft was out of service due to strike
distance_from_airport_nm	float	Distance from airport at time of strike (nautical miles)
incident_latitude	float	Incident latitude (WGS 84)
incident_longitude	float	Incident longitude (WGS 84)
report_source	string	Report source: Air Transport / General Aviation / Military / etc.
last_updated	string	Date record was last updated in FAA database

Quick Start

import pandas as pd

df = pd.read_parquet("faa_wildlife_strikes.parquet")

# Top 10 most dangerous species (Critical risk tier)
critical = df[df["species_risk_tier"] == "Critical"]
print(critical.groupby("species")[["record_id", "damage_severity_tier"]].agg(
    strikes=("record_id", "count"),
    mean_severity=("damage_severity_tier", "mean")
).sort_values("mean_severity", ascending=False).head(10))

# Engine ingestion events by aircraft type
ingested = df[df["any_engine_ingestion"] == True]
print(ingested.groupby("ac_class_label")["record_id"].count().sort_values(ascending=False))

# Strike rate by phase of flight
print(df.groupby("phase_of_flight")["record_id"].count().sort_values(ascending=False).head(10))

# Seasonal patterns — strikes by species and season
seasonal = df.groupby(["season", "species_risk_tier"])["record_id"].count().unstack(fill_value=0)
print(seasonal)

# Airports with most substantial/destroyed damage strikes
severe = df[df["damage_severity_tier"] >= 2]
print(severe.groupby("airport")["record_id"].count().sort_values(ascending=False).head(15))

# Inflation-adjusted cost distribution for damaging strikes
damaged = df[df["has_damage"] == True]
print(damaged["cost_bucket"].value_counts())
print(f"Total estimated repair cost: ${damaged['cost_repairs_infl_adj_usd'].sum():,.0f}")

Pairs Well With

ClarityStorm: NTSB Aviation Accidents

Join wildlife strike records with NTSB accident investigations to identify strikes that contributed to accidents. Analyze the escalation path from strike → damage → incident → accident.

External: USGS Migratory Bird Data

Cross-reference strike species with USGS breeding bird survey and migration pattern data to build seasonal wildlife risk models by flyway and airport location.

Pricing

Sample

Free

1,000 rows (CSV) + full schema documentation

Public Domain

Download Sample

Complete

$99

Full dataset — 341,090 records, 113 fields, 1990–present, CSV + Parquet

Commercial License

Buy Complete

Annual

$199/yr

Full dataset + annual updates as FAA adds new strike reports

Commercial License

Data Provenance

Source: Federal Aviation Administration — National Wildlife Strike Database (NWSD). Operated by FAA's Office of Airports (ARP), Airport Safety & Standards (AAS). Available at wildlife.faa.gov.

Coverage: All reported wildlife strikes submitted by US airlines, airport operators, pilots, and other parties from 1990 to present. 341,090 records across 2,764 airports in all 50 US states plus territories and international locations. 952 distinct wildlife species identified.

Update cadence: The FAA NWSD is updated continuously as new strikes are reported. ClarityStorm refreshes the dataset annually to capture the latest strike reports.

License: FAA wildlife strike data is a US federal government work in the public domain under 17 U.S.C. § 105. ClarityStorm's derived fields and structured compilation are provided under a commercial license for paid tiers.

Processing: Downloaded the FAA Public.accdb Access database (353 MB, updated March 2026), exported the STRIKE_REPORTS table (341,090 rows, 94 source fields), removed PII fields, decoded categorical codes, computed enriched fields (season, damage_severity_tier, species_risk_tier, cost_bucket, engine ingestion flags), and output to CSV + Parquet.