Aircraft about to land at Mumbai airport flies into flock of flamingos, at least 40 birds dead

MUMBAI: An Emirates aircraft which was seconds away from landing at Mumbai airport flew into a flock of flamingos, leaving atleast 40 birds dead in its wake on Monday evening. While flamingo deaths have gone up in the past few weeks, this is the first time that the birds have been involved in an accident involving an aircraft.

Emirates flight EK 508 was on its last leg of approach to land at city's main runway around 8.30 pm when the accident occurred. "The pilots informed us that during the post landing inspection of the aircraft, multiple bird strikes were observed on the aircraft fuselage. The pilots had reported about the bird strike after landing and parking at the bay," said a source from the Mumbai air traffic control. "Assuming that the aircraft would have hit the birds during the final phase of landing, before touch down, we sent a team to inspect the runway for bird carcass, but we didn't find any," he added.

Much before the air traffic control could begun the runway inspection, the residents of Laxmi Nagar, Ghatkopar had found themselves dealing with the accident. "The locality was littered with bird carcass. Broken pieces of wings, beaks, claws were scattered over a large area," said B N Kumar, director, NatConnect Foundation, an NGO devoted to environmental issues. The forest department was informed and they collected most of the carcass at night, he said, adding that at least 40 birds have been killed in the accident. The birds were flying towards Thane Creek Flamingo Sanctuary (TCFS), the only urban Ramsar site in the country, when the flight paths crossed.

Though most of the carcass was cleared, early morning joggers came across remains of birds in some parts of the locality leading to much distress among residents, said a Ghatkopar resident.

"It is absolutely shocking as an avian tragedy of this scale has never happened in Mumbai. Flamingos have been seen changing their flight paths due to massive construction projects such as Atal Setu. The birds are also disoriented due to light pollution, a major concern in cities such as Mumbai. The accident calls for a major investigation," he added.

A statement from Emirates is awaited.

A number of flamingo deaths have been reported from Mumbai in the past few months.

In the last week of April, 12 injured flamingos were found in wetlands near Seawoods, in Navi Mumbai. Out of these over five birds died during treatment. Prior to that a flamingo was hit by a speeding vehicle on Palm Beach road. In February, three flamingos flew into a hoarding and crashed and died. The billboard was removed by CIDCO following the accident.

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