Roxie Laybourne, 92, a pioneering forensic scientist at the Smithsonian Institution whose expertise in identifying bird feathers helped government agencies and jet engine manufacturers take measures to keep birds away from aircraft, died of cardiac and pulmonary edema Aug. 7 on her farm in Manassas.
Mrs. Laybourne was a widely known ornithologist who developed a revolutionary methodology in bird feather identification. Her work was most significant in cases where birds were suspected of damaging or causing an airplane to crash by clogging jet engines or crashing into cockpits.
Roxie Laybourne, pictured here at the National Museum of Natural History, pioneered forensic ornithology to keep birds away from airplanes.
(AP)
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In those instances, she was called upon to help determine the species of bird through microscopic examination of fragmentary, often charred and mutilated feathers. Her novel approach centered on careful analysis of barbules and other minute structural characteristics of feathers unique to different species.
With the species of bird identified, officials could take steps to discourage bird flocks at airfields and engineers could better design engines and windscreens to withstand bird strikes.
One of Mrs. Laybourne's major cases was in 1960, when she helped investigators looking into a fatal airplane crash at Boston's Logan Airport. Through her findings, she determined that the Electra jet was downed by a flock of starlings sucked into one of its engines. The plane crashed into Boston Harbor, killing 62 people.
She became the top scientist in her field, identifying thousands of bird remains from bird strikes on private, commercial and military aircraft. Her expertise was sought by the Federal Aviation Administration, the National Transportation Safety Board and such large aircraft engine manufacturers as Pratt and Whitney, General Electric and Rolls-Royce.
She also processed feather evidence for the FBI and served as an expert witness in criminal trials. In one homicide case, she matched fragments of feathers found on a bullet extracted from a dead man with those in his wife's pillow, which had been used as a silencer.
Mrs. Laybourne worked in the Smithsonian's bird division for more than 40 years before retiring in 1988 as curator emeritus. During her career, she oversaw the division's collection of 650,000 specimens and mentored young scientists in forensic ornithology.
In later years, she served as a consultant to the division of law enforcement of the National Fish and Wildlife Forensics Laboratory and taught biology at George Mason University as an adjunct professor.
Her fascination with birds began as a young girl growing up in North Carolina. Born in Fayetteville and raised in a rural tobacco town, she told The Washington Post in 1988 that she recalled climbing a pine tree to get a better look at owls.
She graduated from Meredith College in Raleigh, took graduate courses in zoology at North Carolina State University at Raleigh and received a master's degree in botany from George Washington University.
Her marriage to Philip Simpson ended in divorce. Her second husband, Edgar G. Laybourne, died in 1966.
Survivors include a son from her first marriage, Clarence Grimmer Simpson of Roswell, N.M.; a son from her second marriage, Rob Laybourne of Manassas; a stepdaughter, Phyllis Hallman of Fairfax County; four brothers; four sisters; two grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.
