Nigerian Airports have reported an increase in birds attacks on Aeroplanes across the country. Birds crashing into aircraft’s are really complicating matters for Nigerian airlines.
According to the Head of bird/ Wildlife Hazard Control For the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority ( NCAA), Azike Edozie, he said they were 93 bird strike incident at airport in the first six months of 2022. A bird strike occurs when a bird is drawn into the engine of an aircraft which immediately damages the engine.
As reported by BusinessDay, he disclosed this information while speaking at a workshop organized by the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency’s Search and Rescue Mission (NAMA). According to his speech, Mr Edozie stated that 54 bird strike incidents has been recorded at Lagos’ Murtal Muhammad Airport.
He said:
“ My record shows that we have had atleast 93 bird strike incident in all our airports between January this year to June. And out of this number, 54 of it happened in Lagos Airport alone which represent about 70% of the total occurrences. We all have to proffer a solution to this menace and I do hope we have a lasting solution to it because everyone, especially the airlines are losing money.”
However, Edozie said that the responsibility of keeping the airspace safe from bird incident is in the hands of every stakeholder in the industry, including airline operators, security agencies, and the Federal Airports Authority Of Nigeria (FAAN).
Furthermore, The Guardian reports that Edozie Conveyed hope that the respective agencies would find lasting solution to the crisis soon, expressing low opinion that airlines were losing millions of dollars to the incident annually.
Further speaking, the Head of unit, bird control,FAAN, Murtala Muhammed international airport, Lagos, Adetunji Adetutu , stated in his presentation that no airline is immune to bird strikes. He explained that FAAN , was doing everything possible to limit the spread of the incident, including the purchase of modern equipment which he said had helped to alleviate it effect.
He also blamed some pilots for the industry’s high bird strike rate, stating that some pilots were always in a rush to leave one airport for another and violated the Air Traffic Controllers (ATC) instruction. He then insisted that the airlines and their pilots must change their customs by complying to the instructions issued by the ATCs. According to him, 98% of bird strike incidents occurred at airports, particularly during takeoff and landing.
