Nepal Airlines A320 suffers a major bird strike
07 July, 2016 – Not a new incident for the airplanes flying in Nepali sky around the premises of Tribhuvan International Airport, this morning Nepal Airlines narrow bodied jet aircraft ‘Lumbini’ with registration 9N-AKX suffered a major bird strike during takeoff causing the aircraft to be grounded.
The Airbus 320 aircraft was taking off from Kathmandu for Hong Kong with 59 passengers and crew members on board. The aircraft was under the command of Senior Captain R. P. Dhakal who took a life saving decision to abort the takeoff immediately after the bird strike.
The bird stroke on the right engine of the aircraft and the fans of jet engines rotating at high speed sucked the bird inside the engine resulting the need for a major inspection leading the aircraft to be grounded in the hangar of Nepal Airlines.
The wounded aircraft taxied back to the terminal. No injuries have been reported and passengers have been waiting for a rescheduled flight for Hong Kong on another plane that is going to return from New Delhi later according to officials at the commercial and flight operations department at NAC.
Frequent incident of bird strike shows weakness of airport authorities towards controlling of birds inside the airport premises and shows the immediate need for the control methods soon.
