Yemisi Izuora
Dana aircraft with registration number 5N-SRI operating 11am flight from Lagos to Port Harcourt had an air return due to bird strike during take-off from Lagos.
In a statement by the media communications manager of Dana Airlines Ltd/ Imo Air, Kingsley Ezenwa explained that the Captain took a professional decision and returned to the Lagos Airport.
Ezenwa said that the passengers were transferred to another aircraft to ensure that their itinerary is not entirely disrupted.
He stated that the aircraft is being evaluated by their engineers to determine the effect of the bird strike on the affected engine.
“At Dana Air, the safety and comfort of our guests will remain a top priority to us and we will stop at nothing in our commitment towards offering a safe and reliable air transport”, the media communications manager of Dana Air said .
A bird strike is a collision between a bird and an aircraft which is airborne and as per standard safety procedure, which is the hallmark of our operation, our pilot returned to base.
A bird strike, sometimes called birdstrike, bird ingestion, the bird is a collision between an airborne animal (usually a bird or a bat ) and a human-made vehicle, especially aircraft.
The term is also used for bird deaths resulting from collisions with human-made structures such as power lines, towers and wind Bird strikes are a significant threat to flight safety and have caused a number of accidents with human casualties.
The number of major accidents involving civil aircraft is quite low and it has been estimated that there is only about 1 accident resulting in human death in one billion (109) flying hours.
The majority of bird strikes (65%) cause little damage to the aircraft however the collision is usually fatal to the bird(s) involved.
Most accidents occur when there is a collision involving a bird (or birds) and the windscreen or a bird (or birds) is sucked into the engines of mechanical aircraft.
These cause annual damages that have been estimated at $400 million within the United States of America alone and up to $1.2 billion to commercial aircraft worldwide. In addition to property damage, collisions between man-made structures and conveyances and bird is a contributing factor, among many others, to the worldwide decline of many avian species.
The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) reported 65,139 bird strikes for 2011-14, and the Federal Aviation Authority counted 177,269 wildlife strike reports on civil aircraft between 1990 and 2015, growing 38% in 7 years from 2009 to 2015. Birds accounted for 97%.