A schedule flight (MH-114) of Malaysian Airlines from Kuala Lumpur to Kathmandu with 180 passengers and crew members on board escaped disaster while landing at Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) yesterday night.

A flock of ducks struck aircraft’s windshield while landing, leaving the southern tip of the runway 02 strewn with broken glass, airport authorities said adding that the incident took place at 10:45pm. “There were no reports of injuries.”
A Jet Airways crew reported the incident to the airport authority. Malaysian Airlines flight captain later confirmed ‘suspected bird-hit’ but did not immediately inform the Air Traffic Controller (ATC) about the incident.

After the inspection of the runway, the airport officials found some 10 dead ducks apart from pieces of glass on the runway. They closed the airport for half an hour and resumed normal operations after the clearance.

Around a dozen migrating ducks could have been hit by the aircraft that cancelled a return flight to Kuala Lumpur scheduled for 11:00pm yesterday night. All the passengers were transferred to Soaltee, Annapurna and Hyatt Regency hotels. The plane took off at 3:30pm today after necessary repairs.

The repeated incident of bird hit has been reported at the international airport in the past years too. Since 1990, more than 75 bird strike incidents have been reported during take-off or landing at the only international airport.

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