The sky didn’t just turn dark. It seemed to turn against them. One moment, Captain Jason Vance was guiding what should have been a routine afternoon flight, watching the landscape pass peacefully beneath the aircraft. The next, his jet was caught in a violent storm of wings and beaks. Birds appeared from every direction, slamming into the aircraft with startling force. Passengers screamed as engines began to cough, warning alarms shrieked through the cabin, and the possibility of a forced landing over a remote forest became terrifyingly real.