The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has ordered surveillance of 20 airports in the country, including the Biju Patnaik International Airport here, after they were found prone to wildlife intrusion and bird strikes.
The DGCA’s move follows a serious security breach at the Nagpur airport in September this year in which a herd of pigs barged into the runway as President Pranab Mukherjee’s Boeing-737 aircraft was taxiing towards the terminal building after landing. Among the airports put under watch are Nagpur, Ahmedabad, Hubli, Tirupathi, Rajkot, Surat, Vadodara, Varanasi, Bhubaneswar, Agartala and Srinagar, an official said.
As part of the State Safety Programme, preventing wildlife (bird/animal) strikes to aircraft is identified by DGCA as one of the most important safety priorities. DGCA data reveal that incidents of aircraft suffering bird hits had nearly doubled to 719 in 2014 from 378 in 2010.