Air Asia flight suffers bird hit, lands safely

The aircraft returned safely to Dabolim airport under emergency conditions. The airline authorities cancelled the flight (I5-1321), leaving passengers stranded at the airport for over two hours.

This is second bird hit incident at Dabolim airport in three days. On Sunday, a Goa-Mumbai Air India flight had to be cancelled after suffering a bird hit.

According to information, the flight departed at 5 am. Thirty minutes later, the pilot noticed a technical snag and decided to return to Dabolim airport. After the plane landed safely, airline officials found that a bird had hit and damaged an engine blade.

Air Asia officials later organised another flight for the stranded passengers. On condition of anonymity, an official stated, “Another flight was called in from Delhi and the stranded passengers were taken to Bangalore by 9.30 pm.

Incidentally, the bird hits have mostly been blamed on the garbage dumps surrounding the airport. Birds frequented those sites, due to which flights departing from Dabolim airport risked suffering bird hits.