POLIS

It was likely a large bird that got sucked into the engine, tearing it apart and sending fuel spraying into the air. Apparently and not surprisingly, mid-air collisions with birds are quite common. Makes me wonder: can't they outfit the front of a jet engine with a wire mesh, enough to deflect a bird or other airborne debris from entering the engine, but thin enough not to disrupt the air flow? I imagine there are probably interesting things that happen to air when it's blowing in at around 600 miles an hour, where something seemingly inocuous like wire mesh could, say, cause small ripples that are amplified at high speeds, but it seems as if that could be designed away, changing the shape of the mesh or the spacing between wires, something to that effect.