Mike Pence’s plane makes emergency landing after bird strike

An Air Force 2 aircraft carrying US Vice President Mike Pence, was forced to turn back and land in Manchester-Boston regional airport shortly after it took off on Tuesday.

Several reports said the emergency landing could have been caused by a possible “bird strike”. The bird strike created some engine issues with the plane, reports said. Pence was in New Hampshire s for a campaign event in Gilford.

He was heading to Washington D.C, when the incident happened. He was not hurt, the reports said. The vice president and his staff reportedly returned to Washington D.C on a cargo plane.

Pilots on the modified Boeing Co. 757 declared an emergency shortly after 7 p.m. local time, the report said. The jet returned to Manchester-Boston Regional Airport.

Bird strikes rarely cause crashes and U.S. aviation regulations require that aircraft and engines be able to withstand impacts with them. But they can shatter windscreens, heavily damage wings or snuff out engines in extreme cases.

A US Airways flight departing from New York’s LaGuardia Airport in January 2009 struck a flock of geese, damaging both engines and forcing the pilots to touch down in the Hudson River. No one was killed and the plane’s captain, Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, became a national hero.