Airline operators’ woes have continued to be compounded by bird strikes phenomenon, as a Lagos-bound Arik Air flight from Port Harcourt was again hit last Wednesday night by birdstrike shortly after take off.

Director-General of Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Dr. Harold Demuren, had only recently lamented frequent birdstrikes of air planes in the country, fearing that the situation, if not checked urgently, could result in a disaster should the two engines of a twin-engine aircraft be hit simultaneously.

Vanguard gathered that the aircraft, Boeing 737-700NG, had taken off from the Port Harcourt International Airport on night when the pilot noticed that one of the engines had been hit by birds.

Consequently, the pilot was said to have aborted the flight and returned to base, while passengers were evacuated immediately.

It was learnt that the airline had to mobilise another aircraft to Port Harcourt for the passengers to flown to Lagos at about 9:30pm.

Passengers who were bound to arrive Lagos at about 9:00pm reportedly arrived Lagos at about 11:30pm to the chagrin of those on board.

Airlines in the country have, in the outgoing year, lost no less than an estimated N5 billion to bird strikes, resulting from money spent on fixing of engines damaged by birds.

Worst hit by this problem is Aerocontractors which claimed to have lost close to N1 billion to the phenomenon this year alone.

At a recent forum in Lagos, airline operators raised an alarm over the clear and present danger frequent bird strikes posed to their operations.

This was reinforced by Chairman of Arik Air, Sir Joseph Arumemi-Johnson, who, at the launch of the airline’s new Airbus A340-500 plane in Abuja, appealed to the federal government that unless urgent steps were taken by government to nip the problem in the bud, the country may yet be exposed to another fatal crash.