Air carrier flight crew reported a bird strike during rotation. Maintenance at the destination found damage to fan blades in the right engine.
Synopsis
Air carrier flight crew reported a bird strike during rotation. Maintenance at the destination found damage to fan blades in the right engine.
Narrative
We were cleared for takeoff off of ZZZ's Runway XX. Approximately 5 to 6 kts before V1; we took a bird strike to the right side of the airplane and ultimately ingested a bird into the right engine (discovered on the ground at ZZZ1). At the time of the situation we were unsure where the bird strike occurred on the airplane. The only thing me and the captain agreed upon once airborne was that there was definitely a bird strike. We informed ZZZ tower of the situation and they asked us if we required any assistance. I looked to the Captain and we decided we would continue to ZZZ1 as planned. We decided on this due to the fact that the airplane was operating normally; their were no abnormal vibrations; and their were no indications of engine fault. We landed in ZZZ1 without any issues and upon completion of the walk around I personally did not see any indications of a birdstrike. However; we did write up the birdstrike in the Maintenance log per company policy. After Maintenance inspected the airplane; they concluded that there was indeed damage to the right engine. Including damaged fan blades and stater vanes. As well as some remains of some type of bird. The airplane was taken out of service; we swapped planes; and continued on are way to ZZZ2.Obviously; there's nothing we can do about encountering a bird strike just a few knots prior to decision speed. However; this experience has been a real learning lesson for me. As a First Officer; I do plenty of walk arounds and I like to think; and pride myself on always doing a thorough job. However; it's obvious in this situation that maybe I was so amped up on adrenaline; maybe thinking about something else at the exact moment when I was on the right side of the aircraft; or maybe I was looking so hard for evidence of what just happened that I came up short of finding anything. Truthfully; I was quite embarrassed after maintenance discovered some pretty significant information that I completely missed. I also learned the importance of why we do so many walk arounds and why we are constantly always double checking each other. I talked to the Captain about this learning experience and we also discussed the reasoning behind having so many layers of safety with my walk around; the next FO's walk around; and potentially just doing a double check/show the captain what you are seeing. As well as my second walk around; as the airplane was left alone momentarily…unfortunately it was to late for that as MX had already taken the plane out of service. Overall a really good learning experience and now I know what a bird strike feels like; sounds like; and looks like! And I can take that with me through the rest of my career.
Second reporter narrative
Heard a soft thud as we passed through a flock of three small birds during the high speed regime of the takeoff roll out of ZZZ. No loss of thrust or anything else detected that would justify a high speed rejected takeoff. Reported the suspected strike to ATC. Enroute we observed no high engine vibrations or out of tolerance indications; and we didn't suspect any other significant damage so we elected to continue to ZZZ1. No evidence of a strike or damage was reported during the post flight exterior inspection. I still wrote it up in the maintenance logbook. The First Officer was operating the next flight in that aircraft and reached out to inform me that maintenance found damage - bent fan blades and blood splatter in one of the engines.I should've done an exterior postflight inspection as well. Especially in these kinds of situations it's probably best to have as many eyes as possible looking for damage on the aircraft. Had I not written it up; or had maintenance missed the damage as well; it could've been a bad situation for the following flights in that aircraft.
Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.