A suspected bird hit forced a Kolkata-bound Air Asia flight with 180 passengers and eight crew members on board to abort its take-off on Sunday at the Lucknow airport, officials said.
Rupesh Kumar, a spokesperson for the Chaudhary Charan Singh International Airport in Lucknow said the pilot of Air Asia flight i5-319 suspected the bird hit during the take-off roll at around 11 am.
“The pilot of an AirAsia flight aborted take-off after a suspected bird hit on the runway at around 11 am. This occurred before the flight could lift off,” Kumar said. “The aircraft returned to the bay and all the passengers were deboarded safely.”
The flight, with 180 passengers on board, was scheduled to take off at 11 am, but it was grounded immediately after the incident for a detailed check. “The plane is still grounded and engineers are checking it,” he said. “Alternate arrangements were made by the airline for the passengers.”
The presence of birds around the runway has remained a big challenge for the Lucknow airport. In the past, incidents of animals such as jackals and hyena intruding the runway have come to fore.
An official of the Airports Authority of India (AAI), requesting anonymity, said, “The AAI has raised the matter of meat shops operating near the airport with the district administration several times. The meat leftovers attract birds, thus compromising safe operation of the aircraft.”
The official added that the problem was aggravated by villagers living in the vicinity of the airport dumping their garbage outside their houses that also attracted birds. HTC
