Bird hit, fire in engine force SpiceJet landing
PATNA A Delhi-bound SpiceJet aircraft carrying 191 people, including two infants, caught fire after a bird hit at around noon on Sunday, soon after take-off from Patna, but was able to make an emergency landing back at the airport without any harm to the crew and passengers, officials said
A Delhi-bound SpiceJet aircraft carrying 191 people, including two infants, caught fire after a bird hit at around noon on Sunday, soon after take-off from Patna, but was able to make an emergency landing back at the airport without any harm to the crew and passengers, officials said.
Residents near the airport in Phulwarisharif said they heard a loud sound, after which they noticed smoke billowing from one of the engines of the aircraft. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation has ordered an inquiry into the incident.
In a separate incident on Sunday, a Delhi-bound IndiGo flight returned to the Guwahati airport after a suspected bird hit. “A Delhi-bound IndiGo flight (6E 6394) from Guwahati returned to Guwahati airport due to a suspected bird hit after the takeoff. All passengers were accommodated on another flight to Delhi. Aircraft is being inspected,” ANI reported the airline as saying in a statement late in the evening.
The fire in SpiceJet flight SG 723 was noticed when the Boeing 737 aircraft was between Khagaul and Phulwarisharif, a short distance away from the Patna airport.
A SpiceJet statement later said: “On takeoff, during rotation, cockpit crew suspected bird hit on engine 01. As a precautionary measure… the captain shut down the affected engine and decided to return to Patna.”
“The aircraft landed safely in Patna and the passengers deboarded safely. Post-flight inspection showed bird hit, with three fan blades damaged,” the airline added.
The aircraft, with smoke coming out of one of its engines, was in the air for 22 minutes before it made an emergency landing at 12.25pm, as two crash fire tenders and two ambulances were lined up along the runway.
Chandrashekhar Singh, district magistrate, Patna, said all 185 passengers were safe and the matter was being investigated. There were six crew members on the flight.
A DGCA official, requesting anonymity, said that the cabin crew did not observe any abnormality after the pilot suspected a bird-hit. “During rotation, the pilot suspected bird hit in the engine. However, the cockpit crew did not observe any abnormality and hence the aircraft continued to climb further,” the official said.
“The cabin crew informed the pilot about sparks from Engine 1 after which the pilot carried out fire checks and shutdown the engine as precautionary measure. It was then that the pilot declared PAN-PAN and decided to return to Patna,” the official added.
Bird hits are common around Patna as there is an open abattoir near the airport, which attracts birds. The issue has been raised during several environment committee meetings with the state government in the past several years, but to no avail, airline officials said, asking not to be named.
The aircraft, with a full passenger load, took off from Patna around noon and was scheduled to reach Delhi at 1.30pm, but had to abort its journey and make an emergency landing. The airline was making alternative arrangements to ferry the passengers to their respective destinations, said Singh.
“I saw sparks flying from one of the engines below the left wing of the aircraft soon after it took off… Soon after, there was an onboard announcement that the aircraft had developed some technical snag and was returning to the Patna airport,” said Gaurav, a passenger, who goes by only his first name.
“I first saw fire from the engine of the aircraft and then heard a noise as the aircraft swerved in the sky,” said Sindhu Singh, 58, a resident of Phulwarisharif.
On the runway, a group of bird-chasers, engaged by the Airports Authority of India to ward off the avian species, also spotted the fire and alerted the air traffic controllers at the Patna airport.
Patna airport director Anchal Prakash said: “The plane landed safely and all 185 passengers, including two infants, deboarded safely,” said Prakash.
The Patna airport caters to an average 84 aircraft movements (42 incoming and as many outgoing flights) in a day. All flights, especially to metros, including Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai, are mostly full after the recent cancellations of trains due to protests over the new Agnipath military recruitment scheme.
Since many trains were cancelled, an economy class air ticket to Delhi went up to ₹22,000 on Sunday against its usual price between ₹6,000 and ₹7,000 during the summer holidays.
An air ticket to Kolkata, which otherwise sold between ₹4,000 and ₹5,000, shot up to ₹17,000 on Saturday, said Kumud Ranjan of Mamata Travels, a travel agency approved by the International Air Transport Association.
(With inputs from Neha LM Tripathi)
