On March 30, 1987, an Alaska Airlines 737-200 lifting off from Juneau had a close encounter of the aquatic kind, colliding with a large fish. The fish was gripped in the talons of an eagle that had crossed flight paths with the plane. The eagle must have decided that playing “chicken” with a 737 wasn’t going to end well, and quickly changed direction.
“In the process, the eagle either voluntarily released its meal or the rapid turn ripped it out of its claws,” Anchorage-based Alaska Airlines pilot Captain Mac af Uhr wrote in a 2005 story about the incident. “In one of those ‘I cannot believe this is happening to me’ moments, the two pilots (Bill Morin and Bill Johnson) watched the fish fall toward the aircraft as if in slow motion.”
“Did we just hit what I think we hit?” Morin reportedly said over the radio, as the fish thumped the aircraft just behind the cockpit window. The eagle apparently escaped injury. The fish became windshield sushi, confirmed upon inspection at the aircraft’s next stop in Yakutat.
“They found a greasy spot with some scales, but no damage,” Paul Bowers, Juneau airport manager, told The Associated Press at the time.
Today, the company flies a plane affectionately named the Salmon-Thirty-Salmon
https://blog.alaskaair.com/alaska-airlines/history/flying-fish/
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