Vistara flight bird hit before landing in Patna, all passengers safe

The aircraft, which developed a technical fault, was delayed by over six hours on its return. All 151 outgoing passengers to Bengaluru were stranded at the airport because of the delay.

A Bengaluru-Patna Airbus 320 aircraft of Vistara airline suffered a bird-hit while landing at the Patna airport on Saturday. All 72 passengers were, however, reported to be safe, as the aircraft landed at the Jay Prakash Narayan International airport.

The aircraft, which developed a technical fault, was delayed by over six hours on its return. All 151 outgoing passengers to Bengaluru were stranded at the airport because of the delay.

Patna airport director BCH Negi confirmed the bird-hit reported by the pilot, but did not divulge any details.

“It’s a minor technical snag. We are getting a replacement of the affected part from Delhi and the aircraft is scheduled to take off at 6.30pm,” an airline spokesperson said.

The Bengaluru-Patna-Bengaluru flight (UK 717) had left Bengaluru on schedule at 8.30 am, but landed in Patna around 11.30am, after a delay of half an hour because of poor visibility in the morning. The air traffic control had asked the aircraft to hover over Patna for around 30 minutes because of poor visibility in the morning.

“The morning visibility when the aircraft took off from Bengaluru was 50 metres, but it gradually cleared up after 11am. We had to hold around eight aircraft, some up to one hour, because of poor visibility in the morning,” said a person familiar with the development at the airport.

Poor visibility delayed most morning flights to Patna. The first flight to arrive on Friday was an Air India Airbus 320 from Delhi (AI 407), which landed in the city at 11.20 am.

The runway visual range was 150 metres at 7.30 am against the minimum 1,000 metres required for landing of aircraft at Patna.