Instead, he experienced one of the most frightening emergencies imaginable.
A massive flock suddenly surrounded the aircraft.
Bird strikes shook the fuselage.
An engine failed.
The aircraft lost altitude.
Jason had to search for an emergency landing site with very little time to spare.
He brought the aircraft down on a remote strip, narrowly avoiding the lake.
Everyone aboard survived the landing.
But the greatest mystery was still waiting.
The birds had not left.
They remained above the aircraft until Jason discovered what they had been following.
The Mystery Finally Had an Answer
The hidden eggs explained everything.
The flock had not been acting without purpose.
It had been responding to something that had been taken from its environment.
The aircraft had unknowingly become the center of a desperate pursuit.
What looked like aggression was, in the context of the story, an instinctive attempt to remain close to their offspring.
