By MICHAEL MILLER, Staff Writer, 609-463-6712 | Posted: Wednesday, August 19, 2009

OCEAN CITY - The city's airport was planning to attack its growing geese problem even before an airplane struck two birds and crashed in the marsh last month.

Nobody was hurt in the July 4 accident, but the Lancair Columbia plane's propeller and landing gear were severely damaged when they smashed into two Canada geese waddling across the base of the runway.

The impact was so violent that one of the plane's tires sailed into the marshes, where it was never seen again, said Bill Colangelo, the airport manager.

"We looked. We searched the length of the runway but couldn't find it," he said.

The pilot from Lancaster, Pa., was landing at the airport at about 10 a.m. when the plane struck an adult goose and a nearly grown gosling that wandered out of the nearby reeds into the path of the approaching plane.