DNA: Mumbai: Friday, August 31, 2018.
Despite several
measures being taken at Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (CSIA) to
keep birds away from the airfield, the number of bird-hit incidents have gone
up over the years, shows Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA)'s data
accessed by DNA under Right To Information (RTI) Act.
Out of these, 205
incidents, 85 were reported between 2008 and 2012 followed by 105 between 2013
and 2017. This also means an increase of around 21 per cent
when bird hit data between 2008-2012 is compared with
bird hit data between
2013 to 2017.
Between January 2008
and July 2018, 205 incidents of birds hitting aircraft at Mumbai airport were
reported to DGCA.
Bird-hit or bird-strike
at times results in aircraft having to apply emergency brakes on runway of
making emergency landing, in case the aircraft is flying. The airlines or
airport operator report all suspected or confirmed bird hits to the DGCA.
A DGCA official said,
"If we go to see the number of suspected bird-hits, the number might go up
but these (205) incidents are confirmed bird-hits reported on the airfield of
Mumbai airport between January 2008 and July 2018."
Several measures have
been taken for bird-scaring or controlling their movement above the airfield
from having a dedicated team for tracking wildlife movement to usage of
crackers, and that of having noise of loud explosives being played on speakers
to scare birds.
Apart from bird-hits,
wildlife-hit or animal-hit at the runway is also another challenge. There were
three wildlife-hits reported at Mumbai airport between January 2008 and July
2018. "In one case, it was a dog, and in another, it was rabbit. There are
dedicated wildlife chasing teams at the airfield but such incidents occur
despite this," said the official.
When contacted, Mumbai
International Airport Limited (MIAL) in an email: "Being the Airport
Operator, MIAL Wildlife Hazard Management is putting best foot forward to
minimize bird strikes at Mumbai Airport and to make the Airport safer for
flying. Over and above to all the precautions taken by MIAL inside as well as
outside airport there is a possibility of bird strikes due increase in flight
movement. If we compare the flight movement in 2018, there is a tremendous
growth of aircraft movement, making the runway busier in compare to year
2008."
Meanwhile, aircraft
movements has doubled in the last ten years. As of today,
Mumbai Airport easily witnesses more than 940 aircraft movements in one
particular day. In case of passenger traffic, Mumbai Airport handled 48.50
million passengers in 2017-18 compared to 22.25 million passengers in 2006-07.