BENGALURU: Bengaluru’s Kempegowda International Airport (KIA), which is accustomed to global admiration for its prized Terminal 2, has found itself associated with a concerning statistic. According to data revealed by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), KIA stands out as the airport most prone to bird strikes in the South Indian region, while ranking fourth behind Delhi, Mumbai and Ahmedabad at the national level.
A total of 535 bird strikes were reported at KIA from 2022 till May 2025. Hyderabad and Chennai registered 420 and 379 respectively, for the same time period.
Bird strikes are inadvertent collisions between aircraft and birds, often with the former hitting flocks of the latter. While statistically harmless in most cases, bird strikes happen during the two most critical phases of flying: take-off and landing. Most bird strikes cause critical harm, if any, to a single engine, which still gives pilots the leeway to execute emergency landings. However, in one of the most infamous cases of bird strikes, US Airways Flight 1549 – an Airbus A320 – had to make an emergency landing on the Hudson River, having suffered a dual-engine failure after a flock of geese hit the aircraft shortly after take-off.
But why is Bengaluru unfortunately above the rest of the South Indian airports in this regard? As MB Krishna, a city-based ornithologist, shares, “The whole area where the airport is built, used to be a lake. Additionally, the surrounding areas are agricultural, which explains the bird population.” Krishna added that since the bird species have been there long before the airport came up, their lives should be prioritised.
According to a spokesperson from Bangalore International Airport Limited (BIAL), the airport’s “in-house Bird Aircraft Strike Hazard Management (BASHM) team employs a data-driven approach that goes beyond regulatory requirements to effectively minimise bird strike risks. Real-time automated bird monitoring systems alert our bird chasing team, enabling immediate response. Daily data analysis informs our adaptive wildlife hazard management plans and predictive forecasting of bird activity, optimising deterrent deployment and runway usage”.
AI FLIGHT RETURNS TO KIA AFTER MID-AIR TECH SNAG
BENGALURU: An Air India flight to Kolkata, which took off from the Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) on Sunday, returned following a technical glitch mid-air. The aircraft circled over the airport to burn fuel before executing a safe landing.
“One of our flights from Bengaluru returned to the airport following a technical issue. The aircraft circled to reduce fuel and weight before executing a safe, precautionary landing,” an Air India Express spokesperson said on Monday . An alternate aircraft was arranged to ferry the passengers to Kolkata.
The airline is investigating the technical snag in the aircraft. The flight took off at 7 pm and landed at KIA at 9.04 pm on Sunday, according to airport sources. The alternate flight took off at 2.25 am on Monday. The flight IX2718, an Airbus A320 aircraft, returned after being airborne for over two hours, according to information available on the flight tracking website Flightradar24.com.