BHUBANESHWAR: A Mumbai-bound Indigo flight from Bhubaneshwar had to be grounded at the Biju Patnaik International Airport (BPIA) following a bird hit on Thursday morning.
The flight landed at the Bhubaneswar airport at about 8.20 am when it was detected that the aircraft had suffered a bird hit.
An official spokesman for Indigo said the engineering staff of the airline withdrew the aircraft from operations as a prevautionary measure. The flight was to take off for Mumbai at 8.50 am.
As a consequence, the Bhubaneswar-Delhi flight was also cancelled. "All 117 passengers booked on the flight were informed. The staff accommodated all passengers on other Indigo flights via Hyderabad and Kolkata," the spokesperson added.
Bird hits continue to be a persisting problem at the Biju Patnaik Airport. In the last, five years, over 60 such cases have been reported at BPIA, including over a dozen in the last one year.
Despite measures by BPIA and the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) to clean up the surrounding areas of the airport, the menace has not eased as meat and fish vending continues there.