AA958 - Incident: American A319 at Albany on Aug 5th 2023

An American Airlines Airbus A319-100, registration N840AW performing flight AA-958 from Albany,NY to Charlotte,NC (USA) with 135 people on board, was climbing out of Albany's runway 01 when the crew reported they had heard a loud bump on their left side on departure just before rotation and queried tower whether tower had seen anything. Tower reported not seeing anything. The crew stopped the climb at 5000 feet and advised they were doing an precautionary return and needed to burn about 1000 lbs of fuel before landing. The crew subsequently declared emergency reporting they didn't know what that loud noise was about, could have been a bird strike or a blown tyre, yet everything appeared normal on the aircraft, the crew requested emergency services on stand by and checking them after landing, they would stop on the runway to have emergency services check them out before they vacate the runway. The aircraft positioned for a visual approach to runway 01. Tower advised that a runway inspection had just found feathers and debris on the runway, the crew concluded they did have a very large bird strike. The aircraft landed on runway 01 about 20 minutes after departure and stopped on the runway for an inspection, emergency services requested them to vacate the runway for a check on the taxiway, which the crew complied with.

The aircraft remained on the ground for about 28.5 hours, then positioned to Charlotte,NC as flight AA-958P and is still on the ground in Charlotte about 69 hours after landing in Charlotte.

Related Flight: AA958, American Airlines News