Mumbai-bound GoAir flight suffers bird hit

In a close shave for a Mumbai-bound GoAir flight, the plane with over 130 onboard suffered a bird hit that damaged one its blades soon after it took-off from the Ahmedabad airport on Saturday, forcing it to return.

All 131 passengers are safe after the aircraft landed under emergency conditions at Ahemdabad and the plane has been grounded.

"One blade of the aircraft, which was operating on Ahmedabad-Mumbai-Bangalore route has been confirmed as damaged due to the impact and the flight has been grounded," a GoAir official told PTI.

The passengers are being transferred to other airlines, the official said, adding, "We have cancelled our next flight."

The official, however, did not specify the number of crewmembers on board.

The flight had taken off for Mumbai at 6.15 PM and returned to Ahmedabad shortly after the bird hit the aircraft, the official said.

The incidents adds to a string of close calls for various flights. On June 16, an Air India plane from Mumbai to Delhi with 140 passengers and six crew members suffered a bird hit while landing at the city airport, a day after two tyres of the same aircraft were found deflated on landing at Delhi.

On June 21, over 160 people onboard an IndiGo flight from Delhi had a narrow escape when one of the tyres of the aircraft burst while landing at Srinagar airport.

Earlier this month, an Air India Express Dubai-Pune flight with 112 passengers on board, dropped several thousand feet over Muscat air space after hitting an air pocket, giving anxious moments to those on board.

About a week later, a mid-air collision was averted by pilots as a Jet Airways and an Air India plane came 'dangerously close' on the same flight path over Tamil Nadu.

Air India flight IC 671 and Jet Airways flight 9W 4758, carrying nearly 250 passengers and crew, came close to colliding with each other at a height of 17,000 feet near Trichchirapalli air space, triggering an Air Traffic Collision Avoidance siren in both the planes.

On June 3, a possible disaster was averted at Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport when a flight was cleared for landing while another plane was waiting for take-off on the same runway.

A Chennai-bound Spicejet flight with 201 passengers was cleared for take-off shortly after 1.30 a.m. but the flight commander detected some technical problem and informed the air traffic control.

At the same time, the ATC had already cleared for landing a Kingfisher Airlines flight arriving from New Delhi. The Kingfisher flight too had some 200 passengers on board.

On May 22, an Air India Express aircraft had overshot the runway at Mangalore airport and crashed into a ravine killing 158 passengers, the worst air disaster in a decade.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson of GoAir in Mumbai said the plane landed 20 minutes later at Ahmedabad airport safely and all the passengers are safe.

"The aircraft is being inspected for damages and we have cancelled the Ahmedabad-Mumbai flight on Saturday and the Mumbai-Ahmedabad on Sunday morning flight," Vice President, Commercial, GoAir, Rakesh Tiwari said.

"Passenger safety is our prime concern. We have offered our passengers complete refund as per customers request," he said.