Two bird-hits in a day at Mumbai airport

On Thursday morning, two Kingfisher flights suffered from bird-hits at the Mumbai airport during landing. However, confusion prevailed as Kingfisher airlines (KFA) and Mumbai International Airport Limited (Mial) gave different flight numbers for the bird-hits.

The airline maintained that only one flight had had a bird-hit.
Kingfisher airline flight IT 3162 Hyderabad-Mumbai was landing on Mumbai runway at 9.36am when a bird hit its engine. There were 136 passengers on board the Airbus 320, and the plane landed safely at 9.38am. “After the inspection, traces of the dead bird were found by the aircraft maintenance engineer in the engine,” said a source from the airport.

Within the next 30 minutes, KFA’s Delhi-Mumbai flight IT 304 had a bird-hit during final approach (landing) at the Mumbai airport.

“When the plane cleared the runway, the air traffic control (ATC) said that the ground staff had reported remains of dead birds on the runway,” an MIAL official said.

When contacted, the spokesperson for the MIAL confirmed the bird-hit of flight IT 304, but said that there was no other incident. Kingfisher maintained that the bird-hit was on IT 3162 and not IT 304.