An unidentified bird smashed into a United Airlines Boeing 737 as it descended into Denver International Airport (DIA) Tuesday morning, leaving a giant gash in the nose of the aircraft.

Despite the mid-air collision, Flight 1475 landed safely at 9:09 am and was escorted to a gate on the B concourse. The plane was traveling from Dallas/Fort Worth to Denver.

The plane's pilots were aware of the bird strike and declared an emergency. They reported damage to the jet's horizontal stabilizer and air speed indicators, but it had no bearing on the landing, according to ABC7.
Airport officials said the bird crashed into the plane about 25 miles outside of DIA's property.

None of the 151 passengers on board was injured, Christen David, a spokeswoman for United Airlines, told ABC News.

Photos of the damaged aircraft show a large gash and dent under the cockpit windows.

Steve Cowell, an aviation expert and pilot, told ABC7 that the nose is the best part of plane a bird could strike since it is largely empty of crucial electronic instruments.

Wildlife experts believe that the bird involved in the collision Tuesday morning was likely a large goose or duck.

However, the exact species will be identified when officials from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington analyze the remains of the unfortunate fowl, which were recovered from the surface of the jet.

Paul Eschenfelder, adjunct professor at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University, told ABC News that modern airline engines are designed in a way that enables them to ingest a four-pound bird without jeopardizing the safety of the people in the plane.

However, Eschenfelder said none of the engines currently in use are built to survive a close encounter with a critter weighing between eight-15lbs.
Close call: Although the strike left the nose of the Boeing 737 with a massive gash it didn't affect the landing, and none of the passengers was hurt
The number of animal strikes reported annually has increased from 1,793 in 1990 to 9,622 in 2010, with birds involved in 97.2 percent of strikes, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. 

Seventy percent of those strikes occurred when the aircraft was at less than 500 feet elevation, according to the United States Department of Agriculture.

Birdstrike.org estimates that wildlife strikes cause more than $600million in damage to U.S. civil and military aviation annually. According to the organization, more than 219 people have died worldwide as a result of wildlife strikes since 1988.

The National Transportation and Safety Board has been called in to investigate the Denver incident-- as is standard in bird-strike cases.

The bird strike report came just hours after the Denver airport received a non-specified bomb threat, according to police