KENYA: Kenya Airways Halts Flight From Nairobi To Mombasa Because Of A Bird Strike

A Kenya Airways flight heading to Mombasa was on Friday morning forced to make an about turn after a bird strike caused an engine glitch.

According to the airline, flight KQ604 departing from Nairobi to Mombasa at 10.15 am encountered a bird strike.

This was two minutes after take-off and as a standard precautionary measure, the pilot decided to turn back, landing safely at 10.27 am.

We are glad to report that all the 87 passengers and five crew on board are safe, the airline said.

The passengers have been redistributed to KQ 608 and 616 which have been upgraded to Boeing787.

Kenya Airways has apologised to affected passengers adding that engineers are currently assessing the damage on the affected left engine of the Embraer E190.

A bird strike - bird ingestion - is a collision between an aircraft. It is considered a significant threat to flight safety.

Although there is no absolute figure on the number of accidents caused by bird strikes, a report by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) shows 1300 of such cases are reported annually in US alone.


Tourism Observer