Thursday 8 December 2011

Seven animal-hits on runways in 2011


NEW DELHI: There's a virtual zoo on Indian runways. This year has so far witnessed as many as seven instances of animals like fox, jackal, deer, pigs and dogs hitting aircraft or coming dangerously close to them. The number of animal incursions on runways has sharply risen in 2011, as there were only one and two hits in 2010 and 2009, respectively.

Aviation minister Vayalar Ravi told Lok Sabha on Wednesday that a fox was reported on Cochin runway by an Air Asia flight this April. Then in May, an AI flight did not land in Delhi because of a jackal on the runway and a deer hit a JetLite flight in Nagpur. In June, an AI flights hit two pigs in Nagpur and a deer hit an AI flight in the same city. And in August, IndiGo flights were greeted by dogs in Mumbai and Pune. Last year was much safer with just one case. Ravi listed the steps taken to prevent such incidents, which include installing grills at water drainage points around airports; regular patrolling to find breaches in perimeter walls and deploying bird chasers. 

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