US plane aborts take off after 'fish strike'

"Bird strikes" are common for aircrafts, but in a bizarre incident, authorities at a US military base have recorded a "fish strike" due to which a plane had to abort take off.
A Gulfstream G-IV jet from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) rumbled down the runway at the MacDill Air Force Base near Tampa, Florida, until the crew noticed it hit something.
MacDill Air Force Base wildlife manager Lindsey Garven was called out to search the runway for a dead bird after the aborted take off in September last year, The Tampa Tribune reported.
At first they thought the jet hit an osprey and aborted the flight. Garven could not find any dead birds.

She, instead, found something else. "I found a fish on the runway," Garven said. "It was a comical thing."
Garven picked up the fish, a nine-inch sheepshead, and met the NOAA crew at Hangar 5, where she collected DNA samples from the jet.

Wildlife Management sent the samples to the Smithsonian Feather Identification Laboratory in Washington DC for comprehensive analysis and the results concluded that the plane did in fact strike the sheepshead upon takeoff, a statement by the MacDill Air Force Base website said on February 21.
Garven said that a bird, most likely a juvenile bald eagle, was apparently eating the fish at the edge of the runway, took off and dropped it on the jet, escaping with its life, but not its lunch.

"This was the first fish strike we have had on base," Garven said.
There have been such instances in the past. In 1987, the New York Times reported that "a midair collision between a jet airliner and a fish delayed an Alaska Airlines flight for about an hour Monday while the plane was inspected for damage."
NOAA Lt Commander Nicholas Toth was incredulous over the incident MacDill personnel would jokingly come to refer to as "fishnado".
"At first, we didn't believe the test results," Toth told 6th Air Mobility Wing public affairs staff in a base publication. "There was no way we hit a fish during takeoff.