A dog got more than its 15 minutes of fame at the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (CSIA) on Sunday. The stray intruded into the runway and 'took control' of air traffic for 20 minutes.
Four flights, which were on queue to land, were asked to hover around by the Air Traffic Control (ATC). There was no runway closure.
The intrusion at 3:39 pm, interestingly, was not spotted by the airport's staff or the ground crew of any airline. The alert came from the pilot of an aircraft that was about to land.
One of the four flights was SG 454, a SpiceJet flight from Goa. Interestingly, this is the second instance in the recent past of dogs showing an affinity for SpiceJet flights. In the previous incident, on December 22, a stray dog crossed the path of a Delhi-Ahmedabad flight at Ahmedabad airport. Not just dogs, other animals, too, have exhibited a special liking for SpiceJet.
On December 4 last year, 53 people, including 49 passengers, on board a SpiceJet flight from Mumbai to Jabalpur had a close shave after a herd of wild boars came across the aircraft just as it landed at the Jabalpur airport. Prior to that, in November 2014, a Surat-New Delhi SpiceJet flight was hit by a buffalo while it was about to take off.
At CSIA on Sunday, the dog was finally caught after 20 minutes and taken to a kennel in the airport premises.
"Once a dog is caught, we take it to a kennel in the airport premises and alert civic authorities. Till the civic team takes it over from us, we feed it well," Prumal Nadar, one of the dog scarers at CSIA, had told dna in July.
"On offer will be chicken, milk, biscuits and other stuff of their liking," he had said. It's not known whether the civic authorities have taken over the dog on Sunday or it is enjoying the sumptuous airport food.
Animal menace at airports is serious business, literally. It involves big money. After the buffalo hitting incident of 2014, SpiceJet reportedly sought compensation worth crores of rupees from the Airports Authority of India (AAI). AAI manages most of the airports in India.
A conservative estimate by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), scheduled airlines in India suffered losses of over Rs25 crore in 2014 due to bird/animal hazard. Globally, it is estimated that financial losses due to direct and indirect effects of bird hits /animal hazard stood at over $1.2 billion per year.
In fact it's so serious that last month, the AAI, in a notification to all airport directors warned that in case of claims arising from airlines due to an accident with an animal, the compensation will be cut from their salaries.
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 "Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (CSIA)")
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