 |
Kathmandu Friday October 13, 2000 Aswin 27, 2057.
|
Yet another bird hit at TIA Operators warn to halt all flights
By Damakant Jayshi & Gopal Tiwari
KATHMANDU, Oct 12 International Airline
operators today threatened to halt all flights if the bird menace persists at Tribhuvan
International Airport(TIA) even as another bird hit a Lauda Air jetliner with 239
passengers and 10 crew members aboard.
When the TIA and Civil Aviation Authority of
Nepal (CAAN) officials were giving assurances to the operators at today’s emergency
meeting, a Lauda Air Boeing B-767 jet was hit by a bird moments before it landed today at
the airport.
According to Bharat Shrestha, airport manager
for Lauda Air (Austrian Airlines), a kite hit the nose-wheel landing gear of the jet just
as it was on the landing approach to TIA Thursday at 10:45 a.m. The same bird ricocheted
from the impact and crashed again onto the left main landing gears.
Despite the bird hit, the pilot landed the jet
safely on the runway. No one has been reported injured in the incident, but it was yet
another close call for aircraft and passengers flying in and out of Nepal’s only
international airport. The last such incident occurred on Tuesday when a Chinese jet with
191 passengers averted a near fatal accident when a bird was sucked into its engines.
The Lauda Air collision on Thursday may have
been a minor one, but since it comes soon after the Chinese incident, it continues to
highlight the failure of airport authorities to get a grip on the problem.
According to Lauda Air officials, when
technicians later checked the jet’s landing gears, they recovered pieces of the bird
from both the nose-wheel and left main landing gears. Shrestha said that there was blood
smears on the wheels.
"We are very deeply concerned about the
growing bird menace at the airport," said Shrestha. "Will they take action only
when a major disaster occurs due to bird hits?"
Shrestha said they had requested the authorities
to allow night flight operation. "This might be one of the alternatives," said
Shrestha, adding "although the deadline for take off and landing is midnight, we have
to pay overtime to RNAC as soon as the last RA plane lands, even if the time happens to
be, say, 10 pm."
Moreover, airlines also have to receive a
‘no objection certificate’ from RNAC for any night operation, he added.
Meanwhile, at today’s meeting called by
Board of Airlines Representatives in Nepal (BARN) and attended by top officials TIA and
CAAN airline operators warned that they would halt the flights if the situation persists.
"We have told the aviation officials that
the pilots have said they would not operate flights from TIA if the bird hazards
persist," said Bharat Basnet, Lauda Air’s General Sales Agent for Nepal.
Concurring with Basnet, Joy Dewan, General
Secretary of BARN said, "We will be compelled to stop our flights if the government
do not take immediate steps."
Meanwhile asked about the failure of the hunters
employed by TIA to drive away the birds, Rajesh Raj Dali, General Manager of TIA replied,
"We are going to employ more bird hunters to control the problem," adding
"we have also decided to blow the sirens as soon as the birds are spotted in the
vicinity of the airport."
Dali called for public awareness about the
garbage which attract the birds, thereby causing such mishaps. "We have already
proposed that no garbage should be dumped in the 13-km radius of the airport."
Today’s incident is the fifth in a series
and second since the bird hunters were employed by CAAN on October 2 after RNAC’s
Boeing 757 was hit by bird, three days before, damaging the Rolls Royce engine.
Other Stories
|
