2 bird-hits in 12 hrs, flight schedules affected

Ahmedabad: In less than 12 hours between Saturday evening and Sunday morning, two bird-hit incidents were reported at city airport.
This took the total number of bird-hits this week to three. On Sunday at 7.45 am, Air India 614 Ahmedabad-Mumbai flight was hit by a bird during take off. But, thankfully no damage was caused to the aircraft.
On Saturday, Air India 144 Newark-Mumbai-Ahmedabad flight was hit by a bird while landing at 8.20 pm. All 50 passengers landed safely, but the aircraft engine suffered minor damage.
The bird-hit pulled back the departure of other Air India flights on Satruday evening which were already running an hour late. The delay caused panic among passengers who had to catch connecting flights for foreign destinations from Mumbai.
This is the second incident in the week when a bird-hit incident was reported after 8 pm. On Wednesday, a Delhi-Ahmedabad flight hit a bird while landing at 8.30 pm.
The flight could take off again from Ahmedabad airport at 10.30 pm, but it took fours hours for engineers to repair the engine damage.
"A total of 80 passengers were travelling in same flight to Mumbai but they had to sit inside the plane for two hours. It took off at 12.30 am finally. But, the passengers on board had a connecting flight for Newark from Mumbai at 1.30 am and protested against the delay," said an Air India official.
The bird-hit coupled with mismanagement of airline staff forced back departure of Air India Ahmedabad-Mumbai-London 131 flight by more than 90 minutes.
25/04/11 Ankur Jain/Times of India

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Categories: Air India Apr 2011, Airports Apr 2011, Safety Apr 2011