Earlier this week, a Delta Air Lines Airbus A321neo from Seattle suffered a bird strike during it’s arrival into Lihue.
It is understood this incident did cause damage to the aircraft, as we will explore in this piece.
Without further ado, let’s get into it…
DL344 – Seattle to Lihue…
Delta Air Lines flight DL344 is a routine scheduled flight between Seattle and Lihue.
The affected rotation was operated by N550DN.
As per data from Planespotters.net, N550DN is a 0.3 year old Airbus A321neo that was delivered to the airline back in December 2023.
Furthermore, this aircraft is still very young, having come out of the Mobile facility a couple of months ago.
Of the A321neo variant, Delta Air Lines has 52 in the fleet, of which all are in active service.
Furthermore, average fleet age for the aircraft type in the DL fleet is 1.0 years.
DL344 departed Seattle at 1602 local time on March 25 and proceeded southwesterly towards Lihue.
Data from RadarBox shows that the aircraft landed safely into Lihue at 1919 local time after six hours and 17 minutes of flight.
Reporting from The Aviation Herald refers to the FAA statement that a bird strike took place on landing.
Details on Damage…
The FAA said the following on the Delta Air Lines Airbus A321neo operating the flight between Seattle & Lihue:
“AIRCRAFT LANDED AND STRUCK A BIRD DAMAGING THE NOSE, LIHUE, HI.”
Furthermore, it is understood that the aircraft remained in the Hawaiian airport for well over 24 hours.
Maintenance technicians worked to repair the worst of the damage to the nose of the Airbus A321neo.
The next morning, the aircraft repositioned from Lihue back to Seattle as DL9887.
Furthermore, it is expected that the aircraft will remain in Seattle whilst further maintenance and checks are made.
All eyes will be on when the aircraft will re-enter commercial service.
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