US Airways Jet Attacked by Canadian Geese

Homeland Security investigators are pursuing early indications that a sleeper cell of Canadian Geese attacked a US Airways jet shortly after taking off.

Bush administration officials immediately said that there was no way that anyone could have suspected that geese could cause such damage to an aircraft.  However, since 2000, at least 486 planes have been damaged by so-called bird strikes, according to the records of the Federal Aviation Administration.  In 166 of those cases, the planes were forced to make emergency landings, and 66 led to aborted takeoffs.

Homeland Security officials, who asked not to be named, voiced suspicions that the suicide attack may have been the work of Al Qaeda. The suicide attack seems to fit Al Qaeda's pattern of returning to targets that they have tried to strike without success in the past.

Terrorism expert Dr. Alexander Bode, Executive Director of the Ohio State Homeland Institute of Technology (OSHIT), said that it was possible that the suicide attackers may have been activated by a coded message in the Osama bin Laden's taped audio message that was released Wednesday. "The overt message called on Muslims everywhere to fight Israel in a holy war, but when you play the message backwards at half speed, you can clearly hear Celine Dion's cover of 'You Shook Me All Night Long'," said Dr. Bode. "Our research has shown that this song is one of the most effective triggers for launching a suicide attack."

Homeland Security officials have been criticized for their inability to stop Canadian Geese from freely traveling across the border between the U.S. and Canada forcing citizens to resort to vigilante justice to protect their homes from the invading fowl.  Each year some 1.8 million private citizens spend $1.3 billion protecting themselves from waterfowl invasions from Canada, according to statistics from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.

Predator B aircraft have been patrolling the skies over North Dakota since early December. However Sen. Charles Schumer, D-NY questioned the Bush administration's decision to deploy the aircraft to North Dakota "instead of somewhere that's actually worth protecting."  Sen. Schumer promised that the matter would be thoroughly investigated. "It would be truly sad if we could not keep our nation safe from Canadian geese," said Schumer.  

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