A pilot remained unconscious for 25 seconds while flying, after a flock of vultures hit the twin-engine plane in Sao Paulo, informed the local press on Monday.
Luckily, the autopilot was flying the aircraft and, when pilot Carlos Willian Pereira Fraga, 22, woke up, he managed to land on Jundiai Airport, 65 kilometers away from the capital of the state of Sao Paulo.
The impact smashed the cockpit's window and Fraga immediately fell unconscious. He was taken to a hospital in Jundiai, where he underwent two surgeries.
The pilot lost his left eye. He was transferred to his hometown Goiania, in the Mid-west, where he will receive an ocular prosthetic.
A physician and a nurse were also on the flight, whose destination was Jau, also in Sao Paulo's countryside. They were not injured in the accident.
(Xinhua News Agency July 5, 2007)