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Fish and fowl foil flight plans

Besides bird menace, there have been incidents of stray dogs entering the airfield, because of which take-offs and landings were abandoned.

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Air Force Station in Yelahanka, which hosts Asia’s largest air show and which is the nerve centre of the Indian Air Force’s (IAF) training activity, has been severely hit by the bird menace.

This could spell doom for aircraft movement, and it is due to the illegal rearing of catfish at Razak Palya, which is located 3km from the air base.

The meat waste, which is used to feed the catfish, attracts hundreds of scavenger birds, which come on the flight path, resulting in bird-hits.

“The bird menace due to the illegal rearing of cat fish is hampering our training. Almost, every day, we are forced to shut down our flight operations for a few hours due to this menace,” said Air Commodore BS Yadav, AOC, Air Force Station, Yelahanka.

He added that being a training base where rookie pilots are imparted training on Antonov-32 (AN-32) and Dornier aircraft, bird-hit incidents could cause damage to both aircraft and the pilots’ lives.

“With over 60 take-offs and landings in a day, the airbase is one of busiest in the region where military flight training is imparted. So, we cannot afford to take risks,” he added.

“The IAF has brought up this issue with the district administration in the past; however, no action was taken,” the officials said.
A flight safety officer at the air base said that despite discussing the issue at the civil military liaison conferences in the past and assurances given to curb the menace, the civil administration has done nothing so far.

Officials added that, apart from the bird menace, there have been incidents of stray dogs entering the airfield. On few occasions, take-offs and landings have even been abandoned.

In the past, the air base has faced bird-hits due to a massive land fill at Mavallipura, which is located 5km from the station.

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