Airlines lament bird strike menace, loses over N5bn loss annually

The frequent incidents of bird strikes have put the total losses incurred by domestic airline operators in Nigeria at over N5 billion annually from various airports across the country. This is coming as operators seek reduction of the crisis.

 

Consequently, operators under the aegis of Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON) have raised the alarm over incessant attacks of migratory birds on aircraft engines, warning that, along with other factors, the attacks may kill the industry if not addressed.

A bird strike is strictly defined as a collision between a bird and an aircraft, which is in flight or on a take-off or landing roll. The term is often expanded to cover other wildlife strikes – with bats or ground animals. Bird Strike is common and can be a significant threat to aircraft safety.

 

Investigation shows that bird strike incidents usually affect the engines of aircraft, which costs about $1.5 million (N600 million) to replace, depending on the type and capacity of the aircraft involved in the incident. This is apart from the cost of shipping the engine into the country.

 

There are said to be at least 10 bird strike incidents, affecting Nigerian carriers yearly in the aviation industry.

Some of the aircraft models that are involved in bird strike incidents are Airbus A340-500, Boeing 737-800/700/300/400, Bombardier CRJ900, A320, MD 83 and several other models.

 

In the past one month, there have been two major bird strike incidents, which affected aircraft engines.

Last April, a Dana Aircraft, MD 83 with registration number 5N-SRI departed the Murtala Muhammed Airport (MMA), Lagos for Port Harcourt, but had to make an air return to base a few minutes after departing the airport.

 

Dana Air reportedly spent about $1.2 million to replace the damaged engine and return the aircraft to service.

The aircraft had an incident with birds on the runway at take-off and lost one of its two engines to the incident, which led to the grounding of the aircraft for almost a month at the airport.

 

Also, on May 15, 2017, a Med-View Airline aircraft, Boeing 737 with the registration number 5N-MAA was hit by birds during take-off from Maiduguri Airport.

 

The aircraft was departing Maiduguri to Lagos via Abuja with over 100 passengers on-board. The pilot had to immediately make an air return to Maiduguri Airport and disembarked all passengers who were later told to return to their various homes for another rescheduled flight the following day.

 

Further investigation indicated that in the last 24 months, there have been at least 37 bird strike incidents in the industry; 19 on take-off and another 18 on landing and, half of these incidents had taken place at the Murtala Mohammed Airport, (MMA), Lagos.

 

Speaking on the issue in an interview with our correspondent, the Director of Flight Operations, Dana Air, Capt. Segun Omole, said that Nigerian airlines lose billions of naira to bird strike incidents annually.

 

He, however, regretted that despite the huge loss, FAAN with its Department of Wildlife Control had not adopted modern technologies to reduce the threat in any of the nation’s airports.

 

Omole explained that in order to control the assault on aircraft, the government needed to identify species of birds that create the problems for airlines, those things that attract birds to the airport and acquire modern equipment that would reduce their activities at the nation’s airports.

 

He noted that of all the airports in the country, only Uyo Airport management has been able to control bird activities with the acquisition of equipment, which sends away birds around the path of aircraft, urging FAAN to take a cue from the airport management in order to improve safety to aircraft and other equipment at the airside of airports.

 

He said: “No attempt has ever been made to avert this hazard in the country. Our approach to the menace has to be forensic because you need to know the kinds of birds that are coming around. When that is established, you need to know what attract them. It is so deep and a lot of people who work in wildlife here just scratch the surface. They are not helping the airlines.

 

“The airlines are losing millions of dollars. Like the one that happened to us recently before the last one, it cost us about $1.5 million dollars to replace an engine and once you have a bird injection, the first thing you get flying an airplane is the smoke like roasted chicken. Once you get that, you have to come down because you actually don’t know the extent of the damage.”

 

A source close to one of the airline who didn’t want his name in print also said that a typical bird strike could affect the aircraft, which costs about $400,000 to replace, windscreen, $10,000 and also the airframe of an aircraft.

 

He said: “It can affect the airframe and that could take the aircraft out for two weeks. Each time there is bird strike the airline loses about $260,000 of revenue and on cost of repairs.

 

“As for costs, an engine repair could be from $20,000 absolute minimum (this is approximately the cost of shipping one way) to a maximum of $3.5 million if the engine is destroyed. Most likely, it will be somewhere between these two figures typically between $100,000 and $1.1 million. This is due to the fact that an engine is perfectly serviceable on wing, but once opened up it is inspected to workshop standards, which are more stringent than in service levels.”

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