Medium Large Transport
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Distraction; Other / Unknown
Aircraft Equipment Problem Critical; Ground Event / Encounter Person / Animal / Bird; Inflight Event / Encounter Bird / Animal
Aircraft Aircraft Damaged; Flight Crew Inflight Shutdown; Flight Crew Landed in Emergency Condition; Flight Crew Returned To Departure Airport; General Flight Cancelled / Delayed; General Maintenance Action
Environment - Non Weather Related; Airport
We taxied out of the gate and onto the taxiways without noticing any more than usual bird activity for [this airport]. Another aircraft had just departed Runway XX as we were taxiing out. After reaching the end of Runway XX we were cleared for takeoff by Local Control.During takeoff roll; just around the time 'rotate' was called I noticed a large black or dark grey bird sitting on the runway centerline only about 100 feet in front of us. It had blended in with the background color of the runway before this time. After the bird passed the flight deck to the left there was a loud impact sound and the engine started to surge and started to fail. Vibrations were felt and continuous loud banging and rattling sounds were heard on the flight deck. The takeoff was continued. The engine did not fail all at once; but rather was surging repeatedly making the directional control challenging at first. When I felt the plane need great variations in the rudder deflection I started to fear a loss of directional control. I momentarily retarded the thrust levers to maintain control. Once control was reaffirmed immediately I pushed the thrust levers to the 'fire wall' position. My intent was to maintain control.Initially; during the climb the noise of the number one engine and the continued surging kept myself distracted from the normal climb procedures or even normal 'engine failure at or after V1 climb out' procedures that are practiced in the simulator. The airplane remained under control; but at a higher level of focus than ever needed for any simulator event I've ever had. During the climb out the engine shut itself down as we started the engine fire; severe damage; separation QRC and QRH checklists. We [advised ATC]; climbed to a safe altitude and flew a left hand VFR traffic pattern in clear VMC daylight conditions. While on downwind and using muscle memory of where the flight attendant call button is located on the communication panel; communication being important; I contacted the flight attendants. Both flight attendants answered the call and I informed them that we were returning to [departure airport]; we had 2 minutes until landing; that we've had an engine failure because of a bird strike and that we had our hands full and we did not have time to make an announcement to the passengers. I did not deliberately not use the Emergency Call Button; nor did I deliberately not tell the flight attendants that we were making an emergency landing. Nor did I deliberately not give a brace instruction or command. All of this was unintentional; aircraft control and landing with the shutdown engine still making mechanical grinding noises consuming my focus.We continued around the traffic pattern. The entire time in flight we had continuous loud noise of the engine and its parts rattling and banging. Because of all of the noise from the engine; I exercised Captain's authority and made the quick decision without conferring with my First Officer to land immediately rather than fly at a pace that is normally executed in the simulator. The landing was made [at departure airport] without any injuries to passengers or crew and without any further known damage to the aircraft. We taxied to the gate under our own power with the shutdown of engine 2 occurring at the gate.I do know we made several mistakes and could have performed better. There were checklists that we made mistakes on and call outs missed. I attribute these errors to the workload saturation and unusual conditions even for such an [event]. I exercised Captain's authority to land as soon as possible because of the mechanical grinding noises and excessive noise in general; even after the engine was secured. I chose to land as I had rather than continue to fly with an aircraft in such an indeterminate state. As an example of the state of flight; at more than one occasion; it was observed that N1 surged from 0% to an indication of approximately 30-40% coinciding with a yaw effectand a subsequent bang and slight jolt as the N1 returned to 0%. The N1 percentages listed above are an estimate from using peripheral vision while maintaining directional control of the aircraft.As a post flight precaution we disabled the Digital Voice Data recorders (DVDRs) and the Flight Deck Recorder (FDR) in case this is later determined to be an NTSB reportable event and reported this action to Maintenance Control. Our Dispatcher determined that it should not be an NTSB reportable event; but for precautionary reasons we agreed with Maintenance Control and disabled the system. We also reported a 'possible over weight landing' to Maintenance Control as conferring with Dispatch revealed we were close to being over Max Landing Weight by 100 LBS.We were directed by the Company Dispatch that we were cleared to continue our day's assignment. We were on the ground in ZZZ for approximately 3 hours with no contact from any State or FAA Authorities. We were not approached by any official while in ZZZ to provide any written statement. We did have several airport officers and local police at the plane while we were still in ZZZ; as well as we spoke with CFR individuals who asked for verbal reports and took photographs of our company identification; photographs of the damage to the engine and samples of the bird entrails from inside the engine intake. At no time did we refuse to cooperate with any officials while in ZZZ.
[Report narrative contained no additional information.]
EMB-175 flight crew reported a bird strike near rotation and the subsequent return to the departure airport minutes later.