Spicejet aircraft suffers birdhit at Goa

About 170 passengers and crew of a Spicejet flight had a lucky escape, when the plane encountered a bird hit while landing at Dabolim International airport on Tuesday. In a bizarre sequence of events, the dead bird, which was removed from the plane, got sucked into the turbine engine of another Spicejet plane.According to sources at the Airports Authority of India (AAI), the SG 803 plane, which was arriving from Ahmedabad via Mumbai, was landing at Dabolim airport at about 1.20 pm, when a bird got trapped in the landing gear of the Spicejet flight. The pilot alerted the air traffic controller (ATC) that the flight had encountered a bird hit and managed to land the plane safely. Seven other scheduled flights were then asked to remain in the sky, until the bird-hit plane was towed away from the middle of the runway.

Operations at the Dabolim International Airport came to halt for about half an hour, following the incident. “There was a possibility that the bird-hit incident could have turned into a major mishap,” said a source. Within half an hour, airline engineers and navy officers towed the stranded Spicejet flight from the runway to parking bay No 6 at Dabolim airport. Later, all seven flights landed at the airport in quick succession. While the stranded Spicejet flight remained at parking bay till late evening as engineers were inspecting the plane, another Spicejet plane, which had landed earlier in the afternoon, was made available to accommodate the 100 stranded passengers back to Ahmedabad. “However, the dead bird, which was removed from the landing gear of the SG 803 flight, was left on the parking bay,” an engineer said.

The second Spicejet flight was preparing to leave the parking bay, when the dead bird got sucked into the turbine engine of the plane. The second plane was then stranded for about 40 minutes, as efforts were on to remove the dead bird from the second Spicejet plane. Engineers removed the dead bird and inspected the aircraft, before the second Spicejet plane was allowed to take off with the 100 passengers at about 3 pm. An airport official confirmed that two Spicejet planes had been affected due to the bird-hit incident. Sources informed that the AAI and Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) have ordered an inquiry into the incident.