Commercial Jet Plows Through Flock of Birds in Shocking Video

A Saudia Airlines jumbo jet was left mangled and streaked with blood after smashing into a flock of birds moments after takeoff from Algiers, Algeria, on Saturday.

Flight SV340 — a Boeing 777-300 bound for Jeddah, Saudi Arabia — had barely left the runway when dozens of birds slammed into its nose, wings, and engines. Video recorded by a passenger shows the jet accelerating down the tarmac before a blur of birds strikes its fuselage just as the plane lifts into the sky.

By the time it landed in Jeddah, the nine-year-old aircraft looked like it had flown through a horror movie. Photos show the nose cone crushed inward, smeared with blood and feathers. The engines and landing gear were also hit, according to aviation tracker Air Live.

In an awful visual, a Saudia Boeing 777-300 aircraft operating flight SV340, encountered a bird strike during its take-off from Algiers (ALG) on 25 October 2025.

The aircraft bearing the registration HZ-AK31, suffered the strike involving a flock of birds on its Nose Radome,… pic.twitter.com/PuOcAXjwFB

— FL360aero (@fl360aero) October 26, 2025

Despite the midair chaos, pilots decided to continue the five-hour journey to Saudi Arabia rather than return to Algiers. All passengers and crew arrived safely, though engineers immediately began inspecting the plane for damage.

In a statement, the airline said: “The safety of our passengers and crew is our highest priority. Our engineering teams are conducting a detailed examination in line with international safety standards.”

Aviation experts say bird strikes are a frequent but dangerous threat to jetliners, particularly during takeoff and landing. According to the Federal Aviation Administration, more than 16,000 bird strikes are reported in the U.S. each year — a number that has risen steadily since the 1990s as bird populations rebound near airports.

Captain Ron Matthews, a retired commercial pilot, told Aviation News Network that such collisions “can feel like a gunshot hitting the plane” and sometimes force emergency landings. “The danger is when birds are ingested into the engines. That’s what caused the Miracle on the Hudson,” he said, referring to the 2009 US Airways Flight 1549 crash-landing in New York’s Hudson River after a flock of geese disabled both engines.

In this case, Saudia’s crew managed to avoid a similar disaster — but the shocking images of the jet’s bloodied nose have gone viral, sparking fresh debate over how to better protect aircraft from wildlife hazards.