Flights diverted after bird hit suspected on runway

Two Mumbai-bound flights landed at Vadodara airport on Wednesday morning when the main runway of Mumbai airport was briefly closed after a pilot reported a suspected hit bird on the airstrip.

Two Mumbai-bound flights landed at Vadodara airport on Wednesday morning when the main runway of Mumbai airport was briefly closed after a pilot reported a suspected hit bird on the airstrip.

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Officials, however, said the runway was soon reopened as the bird was not found.

Around 10.30am, pilots of an Air India Express flight reported a bird might have been hit during touchdown. According to protocol, the Air Traffic Control (ATC) tower shut operations on the runway and sent officers to look for the bird.

“A dead bird is a foreign object. Its presence on the airfield is unsafe because it could get sucked into an aircraft engine,” said an airbus commander with a private airline.

A Jet Airways flight from Chennai and a Spicejet flight from Surat, both of which were low on fuel, were diverted to Vadodara by the ATC.