As many as 39 flamingos died after an incoming aircraft hit a huge flock of birds over the Ghatkopar area, while it was on its final approach for landing at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA) in Mumbai on Monday night. The bird strike, involving EK 508 Dubai-Mumbai Emirates flight carrying 310 passengers, took place minutes before the aircraft landed at the airport.  The Boeing 777 aircraft hit a flock of flamingos while it was approaching the runway for landing at the airport. The pilots reported the bird strike immediately after the flight landed at the CSMIA.

The incident has come as a big jolt to the the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) and environmentalists involved in the conservation of flamingos in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR).

The Maharashtra Forest Department (MFD) has confirmed the death of 39 flamingos. The CSMIA officials have not commented on the incident so far. On its part, the Emirates that was operating the Dubai-Mumbai flight, said there was no injury to crew members or passengers.

The MFD -- which carried out a search of the dead flamingos flung all over the place along the Andheri-Ghatkopar Link road - took custody of carcasses of 29 flamingos on Tuesday.

The carcasses of flamingos were taken to the Coastal and Marine Biodiversity Centre at Airoli in Navi Mumbai where their post-mortem was carried out.

"We are conducting an investigation into the circumstances leading to the bird strike," SV Ramarao, Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forest, Mangrove Cell, said.

Commenting on the incident, BNHS director Kishor Rithe said, "From the scene it was felt that the cause of deaths was a hit by an airplane…It could have been very dangerous for the passengers too. We will help the agencies in investigating and fixing the issue."

"The BNHS has clearly mentioned the importance of protecting high tide roosting places in and around Mumbai, along the coast from any kind of disturbance. Hope the concerned authorities will identify all the causes and address them before something happens again," Rithe said.

An Emirates spokesperson said, "Emirates can confirm that EK508 from Dubai to Mumbai on May 20 was involved in a bird strike incident upon landing. The aircraft landed safely and all passengers and crew disembarked without injury, however sadly a number of flamingos were lost."

"Emirates is cooperating with the authorities on the matter. The aircraft was also damaged in the incident and, as a result, the return flight EK509 scheduled to depart to Dubai on May 20 was cancelled," the Emirates spokesperson said."All passengers and crew were accommodated overnight and a replacement aircraft is being arranged for all passengers, and is scheduled to depart Mumbai on May 21 at 21:00 local time. We apologise for any inconvenience caused. The safety of our passengers and crew is of the utmost importance and will not be compromised," the airline spokesperson said.

Environmentalists are surprised about the presence of a huge flock of flamingos in the Ghatkopar area. "We have reason to believe that the flamingos were flying towards the north but had to change their path because of the high rises all over. It is the poor urban planning that has claimed these lives," B N Kumar, director of NatConnect Foundation, said.

"According to our study, given the height of their flight, this flock of flamingos was returning to Kutch in Gujarat after their migration to Mumbai," Mrugank Prabhu, a researcher at BNHS, said.

Thousands of flamingos descend on the wetland areas of Navi Mumbai and are a common sight between November and May every year. More than a lakh of pink-winged birds are sighted every year. Flamingos migrate to Mumbai y for feeding purposes from breeding sites in the Gujarat region as well as Iran.

Two years ago, the then Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray had cleared the proposal for designating the biodiversity-rich Thane Creek Flamingo Sanctuary (TCFS) in Thane-Navi Mumbai belt as a Ramsar site as per the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, for submission to the Centre.

The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance Especially as Waterfowl Habitat is an international treaty for the conservation and sustainable use of wetlands. Also known as the convention on Wetlands, it is named after the city of Ramsar in Iran, where the convention was signed in 1971.

If approved by the Centre, TCFS --- spread over 1,690.5 hectares --will be the first such wetland site in Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) and the third in Maharashtra to be designated as a Ramsar site of international importance under the Ramsar Convention.