Bird Strikes - What Caused Flight 375?

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Roxie Laborn identified what caused the crash of Flight 375. Her work on bird strikes helped engineers design plane engines to withstand these kinds of strikes. Today many aviation experts call starlings feathered bullets because of how easily they take down a plane due to their tendency to flock in large groups.

On October 4, 1960, Eastern Airlines Flight 375 took off from Boston’s Logan airport, and then, two minutes later, it crashed. 62 people died. Investigators couldn't figure out what had happened, and they decided to ask a scientist working at the Smithsonian for help. Roxie Laybourne's investigation helped launch a whole new field of science that changed aviation and forensics.

Special thanks to the Smithsonian Institution Archives for letting us share audio of Roxie Laybourne.

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