A small plane hit a bald eagle before it crashed just north of Anchorage, Alaska, last month, killing all four people on board.
An investigator said it is the nation’s first civilian plane crash to result in deaths after an impact with a bald eagle.
Shaun Williams with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said there have been other crashes involving eagle strikes that resulted in serious injuries, not deaths.
The pilot, co-pilot and two passengers died when the plane went down on 20 April near a small airport about 20 miles north of Anchorage.
Williams says an unknown substance was later found on the aircraft. Analysis at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC determined some of it was feathers and other materials that came from an immature bald eagle.
According to the Alaska Dispatch News, one of the pilots was a 64-year-old former investigator who previously worked for the NTSB, an independent federal agency that investigates every civil aviation accident.
