According to media reports, a plane belonging to the Pakistan International Airline (PIA) suffered severe damage after a bird hit a Lahore-bound flight on Monday.
The flight PK-758 was headed from London to Lahore when the bird hit the plane and caused damage to the Boeing 777 aircraft’s engine number one.
Fortunately, the plane’s captain was able to land it successfully at the airport where it was grounded for repairs and maintenance.
This is not the first incident to take place and these bird strikes have been on the rise in these past few years across the country due to the lax attitude of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).
In the past seven months alone, over 34 planes belonging to the PIA have been hit by birds which has led to losses in millions of rupees to the national airline, sources said. The sources further added that 8 out of the 34 planes were heavily damaged.
The highest number of such incidents has been reported at the Karachi and Lahore airport with the former reporting 15 and the latter 11, respectively. Similarly, Sukkur, Peshawar and Quetta airport reported two cases each while the Islamabad airport reported one.
These incidents have led to disruption in the flight schedules with seven Lahore-bound flights being diverted to other cities due to the presence of a large flock of birds hovering over Allama Iqbal International Airport.
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Karachi and Lahore really have to do something about bird strikes. Islamabad seems to be ok
Islamabad airport is in the middle of nowhere, whereas KHI and Lahore are in the city, and people still dump garbage and waste near the airport, which attracts tons of birds.
CAA and even PAF have asked people not to throw their garbage near airports, but nobody listens, and nobody is there to enforce the rules either, so these bird strikes will keep happening.