Wildlife intrusion threat: DGCA puts 4 Gujarat airports under surveillance

AHMEDABAD: Following major security breach at Nagpur airport in September, Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has ordered surveillance of 20 airports in the country after they were found prone to ‘wildlife intrusion and bird-hits’. The four major airports of the state including Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Surat and Rajkot are on the list.
This move by the aviation regulator comes after a herd of pigs were found scuttled on the runway as President Pranab Mukherjee’s Boeing-737 aircraft was taxiing towards the terminal building after landing in Nagpur.
The surveillance order is to check the problem of wildlife intrusion and bird strikes as part of a safety programme by DGCA.
As part of the State Safety Programme, preventing wildlife (bird/animal) strikes to aircraft was identified by DGCA as one of the most important safety priorities.
While Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport in Ahmedabad faces threat from birds and monkeys, Rajkot airport has dog menace to handle.
Earlier in August, Delhi-bound IndiGo flight had to make emergency landing and was later grounded at Ahmedabad airport following bird-hit.
In a major incident last year in November, about 170 passengers on a Delhi-bound SpiceJet flight had a miraculous escape at Surat airport when the aircraft hit a buffalo that had strayed into the runway. The plane had hit the animal a few hundred metres into take-off.
“The most vulnerable period for bird-hit is monsoon season. However, we put measures for all round the year to prevent any incident of bird-hit,” said A K Sharma, airport director, Ahmedabad. Ninteen bird-hit incidents were reported in the year 2010, while 18 in 2011, 13 in 2012, 13 in 2013 and 10 in 2014 at Ahmedabad airport. However, this year only 1 incident has been reported.
Dilip Sajnani, airport director of Rajkot said, “Generally there is an issue of dogs at here. However we have our boundaries secured to prevent entry of animals. Also we carry out inspection every day before take-off.”
Every day on an average, 130-140 fights fly in and out of Ahmedabad airport followed by 20 at Vadodara, 4 each at Surat and Rajkot airports.
According to DGCA, wildlife strike data was collected for the year 2013 to identify the critical airports and analysis of the information revealed that the said 20 airports had high incidence of such strikes.
Among the other airports put under watch are Nagpur, Hubli, Tirupathi, Varanasi, Bhubhaneshwar, Agartala and Srinagar.
According to DGCA data, incidents of aircraft suffering bird hits had nearly doubled to 719 in 2014 from 378 in 2010 across all airports in the country.
In 2014-15, around 50.5 lakh passengers travelled in and out of Ahmedabad airport followed by 7.12 lakh in Vadodara and 3.51 lakh in Rajkot. Also, Ahmedabad airport recorded 39000 aircraft movement in 2014-15, while Vadodara and Rajkot recorded 5634 and 3334 movements.
DGCA had termed Ahmedabad ‘worst affected’ in 2014- Directorate general of civil aviation (DGCA) data shows that the combined ‘wildlife strikes’ — birds and animals hitting aircraft on roll at airports — has been steadily rising over the years, putting air travellers at great risk. In 2014, the DGCA had compiled a list of 18 airports where "wildlife hazard" is the worst, which includes all the six metros. Among these 18, five were to found to be the worst affected: Udaipur, Cochin, Ahmedabad, Bhubaneswar and Nagpur.