[imagesource:twitter]

This pilot may have had blood splattered all over his face, but he wasn’t the least bit ruffled as he navigated his plane back to safety.

Ecuadorian aviator Ariel Valiente kept cool, calm, and collected after a massive bird smashed through his cockpit windscreen, managing to get the plane to safety despite poor visibility.

He had been flying over Vinces in the Los Rios province when the giant bird of prey – thought to be an Andean Condor, among the largest in the sky – careened straight through the glass and immediately died on his head.

He shared a video of the scene, showing the legs of the bird dangling in front of his face as he holds the stick with one hand, and films his bizarre encounter with the other.

Pilot somehow keeps his cool after enormous bird smashes through windscreen into his cockpit covering him in blood in Ecuador. He still managed to safely land the plane. pic.twitter.com/mbCr1i05is

— Bad Spit (@BadSpit) June 18, 2023

The skilled pilot and flight instructor must have got the shock of his life, but through blood and feathers, he still managed to land safely.

The Mirror notes that condors can measure up to three metres across in wingspan with adults weighing as much as 15 kilograms, so it was certainly no small feat for Ariel to calmy command the plane with a bloody bird on his head.

[source:mirror]