Cricketers get a mid-air jolt

Bird hits flight carrying Indian, Australian teams from Nagpur

NAGPUR: A bird grounded the highflying Australian and Indian cricketers for a while in Nagpur on Monday morning.

Five minutes after they took off for Mumbai, a bird, suspected to be a kite, hit the right engine of the Jet Airways Boeing 737-800 and the captain turned back for safety’s sake.

On board were the Indian team, barring Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Murli Kartik, Irfan Pathan, and Zaheer Khan (who left for Mumbai on Sunday evening), and the entire Australian team.

Commentators Rameez Raza and Stephen Fleming, the umpires, and several ex-cricketers players were also on the flight that took off at 9.17 am.

The aircraft carrying 131 passengers and eight crew was at an altitude of 20,000 feet and climbing when the bird hit.

 A Jet Airways official, who asked not be named, said the impact broke the springs of the blower of the aircraft’s right engine, following which five blades of the fan came off.

“No way could the aircraft could have reached Mumbai,” the source said. 

Quick thinking by Captain Manish Thakur ensured the flight landed safely to Nagpur airport, barely 15 minutes after it had got airborne.

“Almost five minutes into the flight, the pilot called the Air Traffic Control (ATC) to inform that his plane had been hit by a bird and sought permission to land,” Airport Director Suresh Borkar told DNA.

“The ATC asked him if he needed any other assistance, but the pilot was confident that he could land the plane safely.”

Within seconds, the ground staff sprung into action, with the ATC stirring the entire emergency response team to action. “The plane landed safely at 9.32 am,” Borkar said.

“By God’s grace, it’s all okay now,” was how the Nagpur airport authorities, who were in a tizzy for those 15 minutes, reacted after seeing the players disembarking the plane safely.

“A major incident has been averted,” said a much-relieved senior Jet Airways official here. 

The players of both the teams – who looked uncomplaining – were taken back to the hotel. The Jet arranged for a chartered flight, which arrived from Mumbai at 1.45 pm.

The team landed in Mumbai around 3 pm. The aircraft that suffered the bird-hit had been inducted just a year ago into Jet’s  fleet.

The Boeing 737-800 with a capacity to carry 156 passengers, including 28 in the Business Class, could not have landed with the full fuel capacity.

So, it had to remain airborne for about seven more minutes to burn some fuel to make a safe emergency landing, Jet Airways sources said.