Jetblue FLight 575 back at the Stewart terminal

TOWN OF NEW WINDSOR  – A bird strike in one of the two engines of JetBlue Flight 575, taking off from Stewart Airport for Orlando Sunday morning, resulted in the plane immediately returning to the Newburgh area airport.  

There was also an odor of smoke, but no smoke detected, in the cabin.

The 8:51 a.m. flight with 137 people onboard returned to Stewart without incident, according to a JetBlue spokesman, who said all passengers safely disembarked to the passenger terminal while they waited for another flight.

While mechanics were checking out the AirBus A320, JetBlue was sending another plane from JFK to pick up the passengers and fly them to Orlando.

That flight departed Stewart at around noon.

The problem of bird strikes surfaced after Flight 1549 made a safe emergency landing in the Hudson River off Manhattan over a year ago when its engines suffered bird strikes. No one was injured in that incident; however, as a result of that incident, it sparked a flurry of inquiries about the potential of strikes with a presentation by the state DEC about bird issues at Stewart.